Okinawa City Furusatoen

What Is Okinawa City Furusatoen?

Okinawa City Furusatoen (沖縄市立ふるさと園, also written Furusato-en) is an open-air recreation of a traditional Okinawan farmstead inside the Okinawa Zoo & Museum in Goya, Okinawa City, Okinawa Prefecture, completed in 1987.

Three of its structures were entered on the national register as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties (buildings) on July 25, 2011: the main house and the hinpun screen wall of the former Kuba family residence, and the machifuru of the former Hirata family residence. They carry consecutive registration numbers, 47-0076 to 47-0078, and all three are owned by Okinawa City. The zoo itself calls the site "Furusato Garden" in English, and some city documents drop the word "municipal" and write Okinawa-shi Furusatoen.

A Farmstead Assembled from Two Families

According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs database, all three registered structures date from 1924. The main house was moved to its present site in 1985, and the hinpun and machifuru followed in 1986. The zoo explains that it relocated houses built in Okinawa's own architectural style so that visitors could learn about local customs and history, and that Okinawa City Furusatoen opened as a finished complex in 1987.

One detail is easy to miss: the farmstead combines buildings from two different households. The main house and the hinpun belonged to the Kuba family, while the machifuru came from the Hirata family. The public sources consulted for this page do not say where either family's property originally stood.

Okinawa City's 2016 lifelong-learning guidebook describes the site as a recreation of a farmhouse compound from the late Meiji to Taisho periods, with a main dwelling, an ashagi (detached guest building), animal sheds, a pigsty, a raised granary, a well and a hinpun. Only the three structures named above are on the national register.

Walking Through Okinawa City Furusatoen

A traditional Okinawan homestead faces south, with a freestanding wall called a hinpun placed directly inside the gateway so that passers-by cannot see straight into the house. Okinawa City Furusatoen follows that layout. Step through the gateway and the Kuba family hinpun blocks your view; only after walking around it does the front of the Kuba family main house open up across the yard.

From the house, continue to the Hirata family machifuru, a stone structure that served as both pig pen and toilet. It shows how closely household life and livestock were tied together on an Okinawan farm. The zoo invites visitors to picture the days when native Ryukyuan livestock were kept at the farmstead, and since its animal zone keeps Shima Uwa, the indigenous Okinawan pig, seeing the pigs first makes the machifuru easier to read.

A natural route runs from the gateway to the hinpun, then the main house, then the machifuru. Each structure has its own page with details of construction and what to look for.

Visiting Okinawa City Furusatoen: Hours and Access

Okinawa City Furusatoen sits in the Park Zone of the Okinawa Zoo & Museum, so you need a zoo admission ticket to see it; the city notes that general visitors may look around freely, as with the zoo's other facilities. Opening hours are 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on weekdays (last entry 4:30 p.m.) and 9:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. on weekends and public holidays (last entry 8:00 p.m.). The zoo closes on Tuesdays, or on the following weekday when Tuesday is a public holiday, and does not open normally from December 30 to January 1. It also closes whenever the main island of Okinawa falls within a typhoon's storm zone.

Admission is 1,000 yen for visitors aged 16 and over, 500 yen for high school and university students with student ID, and free for children aged 15 and under. By public transport, take bus 23, 27 or 31 (among others) from Naha Bus Terminal for about an hour and get off at the Nakanomachi stop. By car, it is about 10 minutes from the Okinawa-Minami interchange on the Okinawa Expressway, or about 50 minutes from Naha Airport on ordinary roads. The car park holds 700 vehicles.

The official guidance does not say whether visitors may step inside the buildings or whether photography is restricted, so follow any signs or staff instructions on site.