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.
Discover the Former Hadeba Hydroelectric Power Station in Niihama, Ehime — a registered tangible cultural property built in 1912 with German-made generators, featuring the Orient's greatest water drop of 597 meters. Free admission, open since 2023.
Driven in 1893 for the Besshi copper mine railway in Niihama, Ehime, this curving brick bore runs 93 meters, with pilasters and a two-faced keystone at its portal.
Built in 1893 for the Besshi copper mine railway in Niihama, Ehime, this 39-meter German bowstring Warren truss still carries a tourist train over the Ashitanikawa.
On a wooded slope above the Uwa Sea in Ikata, Ehime, the Former Misaki Refinery Kiln preserves 22 Meiji-era copper smelting kilns with green schist arches.
A wax merchant's townhouse of about 1869 in Ozu, Ehime, with a 12-metre frontage, deep bracketed eaves and three linked reception rooms on the upper floor.
A middle Meiji storehouse behind the Murakami compound in Ozu, Ehime, raised on cut stone against Hijikawa floods and faced with sea-cucumber tiling at the base.
Standing atop Mt. Shoji in Niihama, Ehime, the Former Yamane Smelter Chimney is a 19-meter Meiji-era brick chimney built in 1888 and registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2009. Discover its history, the Besshi Copper Mine, and how to visit "Entotsu-yama."
The street front of a physician's estate in Dogo, Matsuyama: a bracket gate 3.5 metres wide with doors free of metal fittings, and 26 metres of plastered wall.
A late-Meiji physician's house on the shrine approach in Dogo, Matsuyama. A carved phoenix hangs from its convex entrance gable, and a tea room adjoins the door.
A copper-roofed gate and its plastered walls dividing the garden of a physician's estate in Dogo, Matsuyama into an entrance side and a reception side.
A roofed bench of just 2.2 square metres in a physician's garden in Dogo, Matsuyama, framed in knotty logs and linked to the tea room by stepping stones.
A mid-Meiji stone well at Iyoki in Uchiko, Ehime, registered in 2011: four granite blocks in a curb 1.3 meters across, under a small tiled roof. Private land.
An 1894 farmhouse at Iyoki in Uchiko, Ehime, registered in 2011: a tiled hipped roof, a low tsushi half storey, and formal zashiki rooms. Private home, closed.
A mid-Meiji storehouse at Iyoki in Uchiko, Ehime, registered in 2011: 9.9 by 5.0 meters, plastered walls, bare timber eaves. Privately owned and closed.
Kokon-so, a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Shikokuchuo City, Ehime Prefecture, is a refined wooden residence originally built around the end of the Meiji era as a secondary villa of an old family in former Kawanoe Village, then carefully relocated to its current site in Kamibun-cho during the late 1950s to mid-1960s. Its three formal rooms aligned in a row and its distinctive budo-dana (grape trellis) ceiling above the gallery corridor exemplify the high craftsmanship of late Meiji Japanese residential architecture.
Visit the Sasaki Sake Brewery Main Building, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Tobe Town, Ehime. Built around 1908, this Meiji-era sake house preserves the streetscape of a once-thriving mountain highway village in Shikoku.
Sasaki Sake Brewery Brick Chimney rises 20 meters at Sozu in Tobe, Ehime. A late Meiji stack whose corbelled crown flares like a capital. Registered in 2004.
A timber merchant house of about 1886 facing a Shikoku pilgrim road in Shikokuchuo, Ehime. Registered in 2003. Look up for the fish-and-wave ridge tile.
A one-bay timber gate of about 1886 joining a sake brewer's house in Shikokuchuo, Ehime. Registered in 2003. Its cloud-shaped ridge tiles match the house.
An 1884 shop and dwelling of the Suenaga shipping agents at Nagahama in Ozu, Ehime, registered in 2003 for its black lime walls, namako tiling and moulded corbels.