Edo
Okayama · 江戸Browse Okayama’s cultural heritage from the Edo period (1603 – 1868). Filter by type and keyword, with concise stories, maps, and travel tips.
Hongenji in Tsuyama, Okayama, is the Mori lords' family temple, with a 1607 abbot-style main hall, a carved 1639 mausoleum and three other buildings. Visiting tips.
Rebuilt in 1652 by a Tsuyama lord, the three-story pagoda at Honzan-ji in Okayama keeps a classical exterior while hiding newer structural methods within its frame.
The Banjindo of Myohonji in Kibichuo, Okayama, built in the early Edo period, is a small one-bay shrine hall with a cusped gable over its front and a shingled roof.
The Former Morie Family Residence in Kagamino, Okayama, is a late 17th-century thatched farmhouse with a three-room plan and walls closed on three sides. Free entry.
The late Edo Oga Family Residence Front Gate faces a canal in Okayama, with deep bracketed eaves and sliding board and lattice doors across 4.1 metres.
Only 1 bay deep, the Oga Family Residence Sundries Store and Mortar Shed turns the street corner of an Okayama merchant estate under a continuous tiled roof.
Okayama's Oga Family Residence Main House anchors a late Edo merchant estate of 9 registered buildings, with a 6-room plan and a tiled namako gable wall.
The Oga Family Residence Pickle Barn and Cargo Barn holds a closed pickling room at one end and an open loading bay at the other, 48 square metres in all.
At 19 square metres the Oga Family Residence Barn is the smallest registered building on this Okayama estate, its northeast corner cut back for a canal.
A late Edo two-storey reception building moved to the Oga Family Residence in Okayama in mid-Meiji, with cherry veranda boards and a bark-edged cedar ceiling.
Stone breakwater on Otafu Island, Bizen, built in 1698 by Tsuda Nagatada for Okayama domain: 129.7 metres of curved two-tier stonework, a rare pre-Meiji harbour.
An 1848 thatched hall of 274 square metres, moved to this site in 1882. Its 36.5-mat teaching floor and the founder's own room both survive. Listed in 2024.
A late Edo gatehouse of 58 square metres on the street, with a gable at one end and a hipped gable at the other, and charred cedar walls. Listed in 2024.
A late-Edo storehouse with namako-kabe walls, the only survivor of the Kimura family's post-town inn at Katsumada, kept when the county office rose in 1912.
An 1825 village headman's reception wing on an old road in Shimoazae, Maniwa, with white plaster walls and 4 linked tatami rooms, now the restaurant Hotaru-an.
A late Edo thatched farmhouse that served as a teahouse on the old Sanyo Road, moved to Kanbayashi, Soja in 1972; a 5-bay hipped roof with a doma and 4 rooms.
The Onarimon Gate of the Yunoki house in Tamashima, Kurashiki, is a 1780s yakuimon built for the domain lord's visits, 3.9 m wide with four ornate corner tiles.
The Saisotei Main House in Tamashima, Kurashiki, is a 1780s reception wing whose curved-gable entrance leads to study rooms and a guest bath. Registered in 2000.
The Saisotei Tea Room in Tamashima, Kurashiki, pairs an unusual three-mat tea room with a sencha room built out over the garden slope. Registered in 2000.
The gate of Kosenji in Shimotsui, Kurashiki, built in 1829 by island carpenters of the Inland Sea, has side openings and a head beam carved with waves.