Meiji
明治Browse Japan’s cultural heritage from the Meiji period (1868 – 1912). Filter by prefecture, type, and keyword, with concise stories, maps, and travel tips.
Dairakuji Main Hall at Imizu in Toyama, built in 1879, uses the thick earthen dozo method of fireproof storehouses. Its plaster porch of 1889 rewards a close look.
Built in 1910 as the Fushiki Bank in Takaoka, Toyama, and registered in 1996, it was demolished in November 2025 after the Noto earthquake. Columns survive.
This 47-square-metre earthen storehouse of about 1890 held a Fushiki family's textiles. Its bowed door lintel and black plaster dado won praise at registration.
Built about 1890 in Fushiki, Takaoka, this 408-square-metre merchant house hid storage in its roof void and a concealed upper passage. Registered in 1997.
At 79 square metres, this is the largest storehouse at the Tanada compound in Fushiki, Takaoka. Its door sits left of centre and has no fire door. Registered 1997.
The smallest of four registered buildings at the Tanada compound in Fushiki, Takaoka, this 20-square-metre storehouse kept the household's miso. Registered 1997.
Built in 1868 in Fushiki, Takaoka, this timber townhouse held to the older building grammar while the port went Western. Registered 1997. Exterior only.
Built in the early Meiji era and registered in 2019, this small earthen storehouse in Nanto, Toyama turns a trowelled relief of waves and a turtle toward the lane.
Mikuni's 511-metre stone breakwater, designed by Dutch engineer G. A. Escher and founded on woven brushwood, was the first such work in Japan. Completed 1882.
A small early Meiji sukiya-style reception room at Aoki Ranjado in Fukui: one six-mat room with an alcove and menkawa posts, built to face the garden to the east.
A small Meiji-era dry-stone dam in Minamiechizen, Fukui, 8.5 m long, with 1.5 m boulders at its base and ever-smaller fieldstones packed up to a sagging crest.
A Meiji-era dry-stone check dam in Minamiechizen, Fukui, 28 m long and 7.5 m high, set at an angle to the stream so its waterfall hits bare rock. Registered 2004.
The shortest of the nine Akatan Sabo dams in Minamiechizen, Fukui: a Meiji-era dry-stone dam 6.0 m long on bare bedrock that steadied the stream so forest returned.
A Meiji-era dry-stone check dam at the head of the Akatan Sabo system in Minamiechizen, Fukui: 20 m long, 7.5 m high, with a slack-rope crest below a debris mass.
A small Meiji-era dry-stone dam on the upper Akatani River in Minamiechizen, Fukui, joined to a stepped 60 m stone channel that eases the bed. Registered in 2004.
The tallest of the Akatan Sabo stone dams in Minamiechizen, Fukui: a Meiji-era dry-stone wall 8.0 m high with a paved spillway and a 21 m wall at a right angle.
The lowest Akatan Sabo dam in Minamiechizen, Fukui: a Meiji-era earth dam 72 m long with a 68 m stone wall, rice paddies on its trapped silt and cedars on its face.
The largest of the nine Akatan Sabo dams in Minamiechizen, Fukui: a Meiji-era earth dam 112 m long and 11 m high, with a dry-stone foot and a 30 m stone wall.
A Meiji-era dry-stone check dam in Minamiechizen, Fukui, 27 m long and 7.0 m high, with giant stones in a turtle-shell pattern and a 24 m wall at a right angle.
Attached to the Ishida main house, this late-Meiji storehouse was framed from reused sake-brewery timber and fitted with a twelve-mat tatami parlor below. Exterior only.