Meiji

Built in 1909 as a fisheries training ship, Unyo Maru is the oldest surviving steel vessel made in Japan. Registered in 1998, her upper hull stands ashore in Tokyo.

The 1912 main gate and guardhouses of the University of Tokyo, designed by Ito Chuta, blending a traditional crossbeam gate with Western technique, registered in 1998.

Homeikan Honkan in Hongo, Tokyo, is a timber inn of the late 1890s registered in 2000. Built as a student boarding house, its rooms are named for their timber.

The Maki Family Residence Japanese Wing in Chofu, Tokyo, a single-storey house joined to its Western twin by a covered corridor, was registered in 2000.

The Maki Family Western-Style Residence in Chofu, Tokyo, built about 1910 at Shirokane for a navy vice admiral and moved here in 1937, was registered in 2000.

An 1895 tile-roofed storehouse in Higashikurume with a front room and a small tea room, heavy plaster shutters upstairs and a rustic lattice window below.

A late Meiji reception wing in Higashikurume, moved here in the Taisho era, with a tatami guest room, a Western-style room and a transom carved by Shimamura Shunpyo.

An 1881 zelkova gate in Higashikurume, 2.6 m wide, with a copper gable roof on a vase-shaped strut, board fences and a wicket door, visible from the road.

Yutenji's front gate on Komazawa-dori is an early Meiji koraimon made tall by lattice above the crossbeam, with wicket doors. We weigh the 1817 claim.

Built as priests' quarters after the 1894 fire and later used as a shoin, this 1895 hall at Yutenji keeps a formal alcove room and is one of Tokyo's few large shoin.

A Southern Song celadon vase of shimokabura form, a Japanese National Treasure with a smooth, crackle-free pale-blue glaze. Its kiln is still debated by scholars.

Held at The Railway Museum in Saitama, the Tetsudō Komonjo (Railway Archives) is a nationally designated Important Cultural Property comprising 91 volumes of administrative records spanning 1870 to 1893. These foundational documents reveal how Japan built its first railways — surveys, land deals, British equipment, regulations, even uniforms. Survivors of the 1923 earthquake and WWII evacuation, they offer a rare window into Meiji modernization.

Filmed in November 1899 behind Tokyo's Kabuki-za theatre, Momijigari is the oldest surviving film made by a Japanese cinematographer and the only moving record of two of the Meiji era's greatest kabuki actors, Ichikawa Danjūrō IX and Onoe Kikugorō V. In 2009 it became the first film of any kind to be designated a Japanese Important Cultural Property. This guide explains how the film came to be made, why it matters, and how international visitors can engage with it today through the National Film Archive of Japan in Kyobashi, Tokyo.

Letters, diaries and effects of Meiji statesman Okubo Toshimichi, 3,053 items at the National Museum of Japanese History, an Important Cultural Property since 2004.

A National Treasure near Tokyo: a Southern Song printing of the Hanshu in 61 fascicles, holding the earliest reliable Chinese record of Japan, the Wa people.

A complete Southern Song printing of the Book of the Later Han, kept in Sakura, whose account of the eastern peoples names Queen Himiko and an embassy of 57 CE.

A National Treasure near Tokyo: the Song-dynasty Shiji printed by Huang Shanfu, the oldest complete copy of the three-commentary edition, all 130 chapters intact.

Brushed in 1124, this is the oldest surviving Zen calligraphy. Cut in two long ago, its front half is National Treasure number one, the supreme tearoom scroll.

A Southern Song tea caddy at the Nezu Museum, an Important Cultural Property since 1959, handed down from Ashikaga Yoshimasa to the Matsuya family of Nara.

A small ink scroll the Chan master Xutang Zhiyu brushed near age eighty for a Japanese monk, slashed by a servant in 1637 and now a National Treasure in Tokyo.