Meiji

An early Meiji wing behind the Sato main house in Nagasaki: a stone ground floor topped by a slender, sukiya-style timber upper floor, registered in 1997.

The Shimizu main house in Shimabara, Nagasaki, is a late Meiji townhouse registered in 2003. It drops the walled front garden of older local townhouses.

Erected in 1890 and moved to Dejima in 1910, this pin-connected Pratt truss is the oldest iron road bridge in Japan still carrying vehicles. Registered in 2021.

This 1890 porcelain wholesaler's house in Hasami keeps its doma, mise and zashiki plan intact. Registered in 2003, it now trades as a Hasami ware gallery and shop.

The Komaneki Bridge of 1903 at Nagasaki University, a smooth stone arch over the Nishiyama River, survives from the founding of the commercial school.

This brick warehouse of 1907 at Nagasaki University, in English bond on a granite base, is the only building left from the founding of the commercial school.

Standing proudly along a national highway in central Shimabara, Nagasaki, the Maruichi Funeral Hall is a three-story dozō-zukuri storehouse with an extraordinary biography. Built as a Kobayashi family sake brewery in the late Meiji era, it was later relocated and reused successively as a silk mill, a railway property, an incense factory, and finally a funeral hall. With a ridge height of 14 meters and a footprint of 580 square meters, it is among the largest surviving Meiji-era timber storehouses in Kyushu, and was added to Japan's Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2014 for its remarkable scale, layered history, and well-preserved late-Meiji character.

The Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Nagasaki Shipyard Hammerhead Crane, also known as the Giant Cantilever Crane, is a 62-meter-tall, 150-ton-capacity electric crane imported from Scotland in 1909. The first hammerhead crane installed in Japan, it is internationally recognized as the world's oldest hammerhead crane still in active operation. It was registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2003 and inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage component of Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution in 2015. Visitors can admire its towering silhouette from Nagasaki Mizube no Mori Park and harbor cruises.

Yumiharidake Observatory in Sasebo, built in 1965, is a thin concrete shell by Tsuboi Yoshikatsu resting on 3 points, with a relief by Hongo Shin and wide sea views.

Discover Ryotei Harumi, a Meiji-era ryotei in Nagasaki City registered as a Tangible Cultural Property in 2015, where elegant shoin-style architecture meets the historic shippoku cuisine born from Japan's 400 years of cross-cultural exchange.

The lowest of four 1887 dry-stone sabo dams on the Ashizawa stream in Omi, Nagano: 10 metres long and 4.2 metres high, built of boulders up to a metre across.

Built in 1887 on the Ashizawa stream in Omi, Nagano, this 16-metre dry-stone sabo dam is one of four low, gently battered dams still guarding the valley today.

Second of four 1887 dry-stone sabo dams on the Ashizawa stream in Omi, Nagano: 12 metres long, 3.8 metres high and almost symmetrical, with a crisp central spillway.

Uppermost and largest of four 1887 dry-stone sabo dams on the Ashizawa stream in Omi, Nagano: 15 metres long and 6.8 metres high, an early Home Ministry public work.

A late Meiji munamon gate in Azumino, Nagano, opening from the main house forecourt into the garden, its gently curved roof ridge decorated with a circle pattern.

An early Meiji pawn storehouse in Azumino, Nagano, with a pair of black-plastered earthen doors on its west front, namako tiling and a separate roof set above.

An early Meiji brewing hall in Azumino, Nagano, 16 bays long under a low wagoya-framed roof, whose chimney marks the east side of the Iida sake brewer's estate.

An 1875 earthen storehouse in Azumino, Nagano, whose southern end served as retirement quarters with its own privy, finished in tortoiseshell-pattern namako tiling.

A 63-meter late Meiji earthen wall in Azumino, Nagano, built on a stone base with posts every 1 ken and white plaster, enclosing the garden of the Iida estate.

The smallest building on the Iida estate in Azumino, Nagano: a Meiji miso storehouse of 20 square meters, its rafters sealed in white plaster above board-clad walls.