Edo

Ordered by the third shogun Iemitsu and finished in 1646, Takisan Tosho-gu in Okazaki keeps its main hall, gate and other buildings in vivid lacquer and colour.

On Mt. Hōrai in Aichi, this shrine to Tokugawa Ieyasu is tied to a legend of his birth. Its cypress-bark halls of 1651 are an Important Cultural Property.

Discover the Horaiji Niomon Gate, an Important Cultural Property built by Shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu in 1651. Explore intricate carvings, 1,425 stone steps, and the spiritual beauty of Mt. Horaiji in Shinshiro, Aichi Prefecture.

Discover Mandara-ji Shoin, an Important Cultural Property in Konan, Aichi. This Muromachi-style shoin reception hall served as a war council site before the Battle of Sekigahara and hosted shogunal inspectors during the Edo period. Visit during the famous Wisteria Festival.

Discover Mandaraji Temple's Main Hall (Shodo), an Important Cultural Property in Konan City, Aichi. Built in 1632 with a design inspired by the Imperial Shishinden, this Jodo sect temple also offers spectacular wisteria gardens each spring.

Rokusho Shrine in Okazaki City, Aichi Prefecture, is a historic Shinto shrine revered as the guardian deity of Tokugawa Ieyasu's birthplace. Five of its buildings — the Main Hall, Offering Hall, Worship Hall, Divine Kitchen, and Tower Gate — are designated Important Cultural Properties of Japan. Built under the patronage of the third Shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu, these structures showcase stunning polychrome decorations and gongen-zukuri architecture rivaling the splendor of Nikko Toshogu.

The ōiden of Ushida Hachiman Shrine in Chiryu, Aichi, built around 1856, encloses the older honden and is shaped like a full main hall with a carved canopy.

At Ushida Hachiman Shrine in Chiryu, Aichi, a small Edo-period honden sits within a covering hall, anchoring a rare line of four halls registered in 2024.

On Honmachi-dori, which climbs to Inuyama Castle, this late-Edo townhouse is unusually broad at 11.8 meters, its face black plaster behind lattice. Listed 2004.

Eijuji's Kyozo is a tiny mud-walled storehouse, about three metres square, in the temple's northeast. Plaster walls and a pyramidal roof guarded its scriptures.

Joined to the east of Eijuji's main hall, the kuri and shoin form its largest building: a kitchen with earthen floor and stove, and two formal fifteen-mat rooms.

Eijuji's mountain gate is a four-legged zelkova structure carved in 1794 by the noted Shinshu Tatekawa school, its beams wrapped in deep three-dimensional relief.

On the west of Eijuji's front garden, the shuryo was the monks' communal quarters. An earthen passage runs east, and six rooms of graded size fill two rows.

Southwest of Eijuji's main hall stands the zendo, a meditation hall of 1722. A gabled canopy fronts it; tatami fills the center, board floors run along the sides.

The Kuri (priests' quarters) of Enmyō-ji in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture, is an unusual structure that began life as a merchant townhouse in the late Edo-period castle town and was relocated and reassembled within the temple precinct in the mid-Meiji period. With a gabled pantile roof and a footprint of about 314 square meters, it was registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2012. As a rare surviving example of a castle-town machiya repurposed as a temple residence, it pairs naturally with a walk through Inuyama's preserved old town and a visit to nearby Inuyama Castle.

Standing in Inuyama's historic temple district just minutes from the National Treasure castle, the Enmyo-ji Belfry is a three-meter-square open-sided bell tower built between 1661 and 1751. Its Zen-style structural body, densely packed two-stepped brackets, jar-strut gable decoration, and deeply curved eaves earned it Registered Tangible Cultural Property status in 2012. Discover a hidden architectural gem set within a temple famous for its 300-year-old weeping cherry tree.

Discover Enmyoji Temple's Main Hall, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Inuyama, Aichi. Built in the early Edo period and renovated in 1689, this Jodo Shinshu sanctuary preserves rare architectural features and stands beside a magnificent 300-year-old weeping cherry tree.

Ome Shrine sits on a wooded hill in Seto City's Akazu district, listed in Japan's tenth-century shrine register and home to a Main Hall built in 1805 by local master carpenters. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in March 2024, this elegant sanken-sha nagare-zukuri sanctuary stands beside a seventh-century burial mound in the heart of Akazu—one of Japan's six ancient pottery centers.

A small late-Edo gate at the former Okumura merchant house in Inuyama, Aichi: black-plastered front, white rear, just six square meters, registered in 1999.

Discover the Onoda Family Residence Nagayamon in Toyohashi, Aichi — a registered tangible cultural property built in 1849 by a village headman inspired by Edo samurai gate architecture. Explore its history, architectural significance, and visiting tips.