Ryukyu Mura

A Park of Houses Carried Here and Rebuilt

Ryukyu Mura is an open-air park in Yamada, Onna Village, Kunigami District, Okinawa Prefecture, where seven relocated buildings were listed as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on 15 May 2007.

The grounds sit on a rise just inland of Route 58. Red tiled roofs run low across the site and the paths bend between them. None of these houses is a replica. Each was dismantled at its original location in Shuri, Nago, Nanjo or Ishigaki Island, carried here, and re-erected at Ryukyu Mura between 1981 and 1982.

The move came first and the listing 25 years later. When the park opened, these were simply old houses. Their status as cultural property caught up afterwards.

Why Seven Buildings Were Listed Together

The seven buildings at Ryukyu Mura were listed on a single day, and their registration numbers run consecutively from 47-0025 to 47-0031. Five are dwelling houses, one is a raised granary, and one is a stone pigsty-and-privy. The five houses belonged to the Shimabukuro, Tamanaha, Nishiishigaki, Higa and Oshiro families.

Six were listed under the criterion that the structure serves as a model of design, meaning they show how Okinawan houses were actually built. The Former Hirata Family Residence Furu was listed under a different criterion: that it would not be easy to recreate. Urban use of such structures was banned across Okinawa Prefecture in 1917, and almost none has been built since.

The construction dates span a long stretch. Only the Oshiro house reaches back into the late Edo period; the other six are Meiji-period work. All seven share a single owner, Takoyama Co., Ltd., and are maintained as one holding.

An eighth listed building, the Former Kokuba Family Residence Main House, also stands inside Ryukyu Mura. It was registered separately in 2015 under a different owner and a different street number, which is why some sources count eight registered buildings in the park rather than seven.

Walking the Grounds

The seven buildings at Ryukyu Mura stand close together. Circling the paths takes only minutes, but stepping up into the rooms and looking properly will fill an hour and more.

The Nishiishigaki house sits beside the central square. Walk north from there and you reach the Shimabukuro house with its granary alongside. The open ground used for eisa drumming lies near the Tamanaha house. The Hirata furu was set below a slope near the eastern edge of the central area, so you look down on it rather than at it.

Seeing the seven in sequence is the point. A gentry house and a farming family's house differ in scale and in plan, and the way the amahaji eaves wrap a building changes from island to island. Visit one alone and none of that is visible.

Visiting Ryukyu Mura

Ryukyu Mura opens 9:30 to 17:00, with last admission at 16:00, and closes on no fixed day. Admission is 2,000 yen for adults, 1,500 yen for high school students on production of a student card, and 800 yen for children aged 6 to 15; under-sixes enter free. Advance web tickets are cheaper. Prices and hours are revised from time to time, so check the official site before travelling.

Paid admission lets you go inside the listed buildings, which is unusual for Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in private hands. You can sit on the matting and look up into the roof framing. Photography is allowed throughout the grounds.

Eisa performances run four times a day at 10:00, 12:00, 14:00 and 16:00 in the Kijimuna Theatre. Folk song and Ryukyuan dance are staged at 11:00, 13:30 and 15:00 in the Shimabukuro house, with a 12:30 show in the Champuru Theatre. Weather and bookings can move a performance elsewhere.

By car, Ryukyu Mura is about 60 minutes from Naha Airport, roughly 30 kilometres north on Route 58. Buses from Naha towards Nago take about the same time; get off at the Ryukyu Mura Mae stop. There is a large car park on site.