Edo

A timber charcoal shed across the road at the Takeshige brewery in Motai, said to reuse part of the old main house moved here in 1909, holding the Nakasendo streetline.

Built in 1767 in the castle town of Matsushiro, Chōmyō-ji Hondō is a Pure Land Buddhist main hall registered as a Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2014, alongside the temple's sutra repository and main gate. Its richly carved transoms, refined bracket complexes, and elegant frog-leg struts make it a representative late-Edo Jōdo-shū main hall of northern Shinano.

Tsuumo-Imai (Kanehira) Shrine's Kanehira-sha stands in the quiet Kami-Imai district of Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture, on a site traditionally identified as the residence of the late Heian samurai Imai Shirō Kanehira — foster brother and most loyal retainer of Kiso Yoshinaka, whose tragic death is immortalised in The Tale of the Heike. Built in 1833 (Tenpō 4), this compact single-bay nagare-zukuri honden of just 4.4 square metres concentrates some of the most exuberant Edo-period sculpture in central Japan, with stacked karahafu and chidori-hafu gables, dragon transoms, lion-and-elephant kibana, wave-cut door panels and Seven Sages carvings on the rear wakishōji. It was added to Japan's Registered Tangible Cultural Properties list on 31 October 2022, together with the precinct's Tsuumo-sha, Shinmei-sha and Kagura-den.

Near the center of the Nagano Meijo brewery in Chikuma, this late-Edo storehouse ages sake kasu, the lees left after pressing. Part of a junmai brewery founded in 1689.

West of the main hall at Nagano Meijo in Chikuma, this late-Edo storehouse held brown and polished rice. Old maps show a waterwheel mill once milled grain here.

At the core of Nagano Meijo in Chikuma, this two-storey earthen hall is where rice is washed, mashed and pressed, with koji rooms and a sake shrine on the floor above.

East of the main hall at Nagano Meijo in Chikuma, this late-Edo cellar uses raised-beam framing to form one tall room where tanks of finished sake rest and mature.

At the north edge of Nagano Meijo in Chikuma, this late-Edo gate opens onto the Hokkoku Nishiwaki highway. One half is the gateway, the other a former gatekeeper's room.

Discover the Nonaka Family Residence Main House in Matsushiro, Nagano — a late-Edo period samurai dwelling once occupied by a district magistrate, registered as a Tangible Cultural Property in 2006.

Located in Matsushiro, Nagano City, the Main Hall of Baiou-in is the central building of a Sōtō Zen temple founded in 1672 by the Sanada family to honour Lady Ukyō, a concubine of Sanada Nobuyuki, the first lord of the Matsushiro Domain. After damage in the great Zenkōji Earthquake of 1847, the single-storey wooden hipped-roof hall with a six-room hōjō plan was rebuilt in 1861. It faithfully expresses the character of late-Edo regional Sōtō Zen architecture and was registered, together with its temple gate, as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2014. The temple is also known for an unusual statue of Gyoran Kannon riding a carp and a monument to the children's song 'Mite Gozaru.'

Located in the historic castle town of Matsushiro on the southern edge of Nagano City, the Sanmon (mountain gate) of Myotoku-ji Temple is a wooden two-storied bell tower gate built in 1713 and registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2022. Its three-bay romon structure, refined bracket arms and graceful flower-head windows showcase the craftsmanship of early Edo-period rural carpenters, while the temple grounds also house the graves of Takeda strategist Kosaka Masanobu and General Kuribayashi Tadamichi, the commander at Iwo Jima, making it a quiet but rewarding destination for travelers exploring this Sanada castle town.

Discover Meitoku-ji Main Hall, a 1713 Soto Zen temple building registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in Nagano's Matsushiro district, blending mid-Edo architecture with Sengoku-era warrior history.

A small late-Edo-period hall on the grounds of Yamada Ryokan at Otari Onsen in Nagano, built so that toji bathers could pray to Yakushi Nyorai, the Buddha of Medicine. A Registered Tangible Cultural Property and a rare living trace of Japan's spa-and-faith healing tradition.

Hon'ami Kōetsu's Raku bowl Fujisan, white above and dark below like snow-capped Mount Fuji, is a National Treasure rarely shown at Sunritz Hattori Museum, Lake Suwa.

Discover the Yabe Family Residence in Yazu, Tottori — a nationally designated Important Cultural Property dating to the early 17th century, featuring grand timber architecture and a rare multi-colored camellia tree.

Discover the Ishio Family Residence Main House, a nationally registered tangible cultural property in Tottori's historic Shikano castle town, featuring exquisite Kyoto-style lattice work and Edo-period merchant architecture.

Takuhi Shrine, perched within a natural rock cavern on the slopes of Mt. Takuhi on Nishinoshima Island in the Oki Islands of Shimane Prefecture, is renowned for its extraordinary setting where sacred architecture merges with the mountain itself. The main hall, prefabricated in Osaka in 1732 and assembled on site, together with the connecting hall and worship hall, forms the oldest surviving shrine complex in the Oki Islands, designated as an Important Cultural Property of Japan in 1992. Revered for centuries as the guardian deity of maritime safety across the Sea of Japan, the shrine was famously depicted by ukiyo-e masters Hiroshige and Hokusai.

The Former Dōmen Family Residence in Yoshika Town, Shimane Prefecture, is an Important Cultural Property of Japan that authentically preserves the living conditions of ordinary farming families during the Edo period. This remarkably rare surviving example of a modest common farmer's dwelling features a thatched hipped-gable roof and compact design reflecting the practical needs of rural mountain life in the Iwami region.

An 18th-century farmhouse in Unnan, Shimane, and an Important Cultural Property. Its great hall is held open without posts by raised nobori-bari beams.

On the rugged island of Dōgo in Japan's remote Oki Islands stands Mizuwakasu Shrine, the highest-ranked shrine of the former Oki Province. Its Main Hall, rebuilt in 1795, is a nationally designated Important Cultural Property celebrated for its rare Oki-zukuri architectural style — a hybrid found nowhere else in Japan. With its dramatic thatched gable roof, ancient pine-lined approach, classical sumo ring, and biennial festival of yamabiki and yabusame, this shrine offers travelers a profound encounter with island spirituality and over a thousand years of recorded history.