Edo

Discover Shokoji Temple in Takaoka, Toyama — a recently designated National Treasure featuring 12 magnificent Edo-period buildings, the Seven Wonders, and a 23-year restoration masterpiece. Plan your visit to this hidden gem of Japanese Buddhist heritage.

The front gate is the first thing visitors meet, a heavy, imposing structure fit for a family ranked among Etchu's great landlords and village officers.

The north gate opens onto the estate's working side, where the work yard and well stood, carrying daily farm labour rather than the formal reception of the front gate.

Built in 1868, the Uchiyama main house blends a working farmhouse with Meiji reception rooms: deep sheltering eaves, a moon-viewing platform and a hidden water-chime.

Built in 1843, Otaki Shrine's joined main and worship halls carry a cypress-bark roof called Japan's most complex, raised for the paper goddess Kawakami-gozen.

A late-Edo thatched farmhouse in Katsuyama, Fukui, built by Eiheiji carpenters for a headman. Its winged front-hall plan marks the peak of the Echizen tradition.

Kehi Jingū's vermilion Great Torii in Tsuruga, Fukui, dates to 1645. Nearly 11 m tall, it survived the raid that burned the shrine and is now its oldest building.

A late-Edo farmhouse of about 1809, moved to a park in Echizen, Fukui. Its sideways-T plan with two projecting wings is the most developed of this regional farmhouse form.

Fukui's oldest farmhouse, known as Senko no Ie, raised on hand-hewn chestnut posts, three of them forked matabashira, with an irimoya front and a hipped rear roof.

The Former Hashimoto Residence in Ono, Fukui, is an early-18th-century farmhouse with snow-country framing, a large earthen-floored niwa, and rare earth-seated rooms.

The Horiguchi Residence in Ikeda, Fukui, is an early-18th-century farmhouse using five mata-bashira, naturally forked pillars, the most in the prefecture.

The Ishida Residence main house on Fukui's Echizen coast is a late-Edo timber home under russet Echizen tile, built by a family of village headmen. Exterior view only.

The oldest Ishida storehouse, this late-Edo building has a miso lean-to whose east wall is namako-kabe, a grid of black tile and white plaster. Exterior only.

The Former Wakasaya Inn is a nationally Registered Tangible Cultural Property located in Imajo-juku, a historic post town along the Hokkoku Kaido highway in Minamiechizen, Fukui Prefecture. Built in the late Edo period, this two-story wooden inn features traditional lattice screens and wing fire walls, and was once one of the largest hatago in a town that boasted 55 inns. Now revived as a soba restaurant and community space, it forms a key part of the Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings.

Built in 1865 in the Nishizu district of Obama City, Fukui Prefecture, this Edo-period merchant townhouse was home to Furukawaya Sōbē, a ship captain who served the renowned Furukawa-ya kitamaebune shipping enterprise. Featuring projecting lattice windows, plastered sleeve walls, and a traditional through-passage layout, it is one of the few pre-Meiji townhouses surviving in Obama. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2021, it now operates as the heritage accommodation Nishizu Minato Furukawa.

The Koizumi Family Residence Main House in Nikaido, Echizen City, Fukui Prefecture, is a late-Edo-period farmhouse registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2009. Its distinctive silhouette combines a tall gable-fronted thatched roof with tiled gable roofs and deep tiled eaves, while the interior preserves an unusual dojo-like plan centred on a great hall. The house reflects the layered life of the Koizumi family, who served as village headmen, sake brewers, and Shinto priests of the historic Hakusan Shrine.

Tangando Soan is a hermitage built around 1846 by Fukui Domain physician Yamamoto Zuian at the foot of Mount Asuwa in Fukui City. During the Bakumatsu period, feudal lord Matsudaira Shungaku and reformist samurai such as Hashimoto Sanai held secret political meetings here. The site features a unique storehouse with sukiya-style interiors and a moss-covered garden rich in Shakudani stone.

Discover the Arima Family Mausoleum at Bairinji Temple in Kurume, Fukuoka—five mausoleum buildings designated as Important Cultural Properties, built between 1630 and 1655 by the lords of Kurume Domain. Explore samurai heritage, Zen spirituality, and plum blossoms in one remarkable site.

Located in eastern Fukuoka City, the Main Hall of Kashii-gu is a nationally designated Important Cultural Property, rebuilt in 1801 by the 10th lord of the Fukuoka domain. It is the sole surviving example of the unique "Kashii-zukuri" architectural style, enshrining Emperor Chūai and Empress Jingū. As one of only 16 imperially commissioned shrines in Japan, it preserves 1,800 years of sacred history.

Sakurai Shrine in Itoshima keeps its 1632 main hall, worship hall, and gate before a sacred cave from 1610, listed as an Important Cultural Property in 2023.