Edo
江戸Browse Japan’s cultural heritage from the Edo period (1603 – 1868). Filter by prefecture, type, and keyword, with concise stories, maps, and travel tips.
Tanjoji Temple in Kumenan, Okayama, marks Honen's birthplace. Its 1695 Mieido Hall with round posts and bracket sets and 1716 gate are Important Cultural Properties.
The main hall of Tsuruyama Hachiman Shrine in Tsuyama, Okayama, built in 1669, is the most elaborate of the regional nakayama-style halls, rich in carving.
The Hayashi Family Residence in Mimasaka, Okayama, is a headman's homestead with a thatched 1786 main house, a long gate and two storehouses, open days 1-7 monthly.
A late Edo pagoda at Bitchu Kokubunji in Soja, Okayama: begun about 1821, 34.315 m tall, listed in 1980 for its slim proportions and inner frame. How to visit.
Bitchu Matsuyama Castle in Takahashi, Okayama keeps its 1683 keep, two-story turret and earthen wall, Important Cultural Properties since 1941. Hours, fees, hike.
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.
Discover Myohonji Bandindo, a Momoyama-period Important Cultural Property in Kibichuo Town, Okayama. This intricately carved shrine to thirty guardian deities sits within the Nichiren stronghold known as the "Western Minobu," offering travelers a quiet encounter with vibrant lacquer carvings, autumn foliage, and seven centuries of Buddhist history.
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.