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.
Built in 1909 in Iide, Yamagata, the Watanabe Rokurobei nagayamon is a two-storey plastered gatehouse with a brick base and a coffered ceiling over its passage.
Brick shaft kiln of 1883 built by Onoda Cement, Japan's first private cement firm, in Sanyo-Onoda, Yamaguchi; the Tokkuri Kiln is the only such kiln left.
Built in 1906, the Former British Consulate at Shimonoseki is Japan's oldest surviving consulate building, a Queen Anne design by British architect William Cowan.
The Shikairo of 1879 at Murotsu, Yamaguchi, a four-storey plastered house built for a shipping agent, is decorated with plaster dragons and coloured glass.
An 1871 stone lighthouse on the cliffs of Mutsurejima off Shimonoseki, built under R. H. Brunton and made an Important Cultural Property in 2020. It still works.
The Kase Tunnel in Hagi City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, is a stone road tunnel cut through the Kasega-saka Pass during the Meiji era. Construction began in 1883 and was completed in 1886. With a length of about 182 metres, a width of about 4.2 metres, and a height of about 3.9 metres, its andesite ashlar interior still preserves the atmosphere of early modern Japan. Recorded as the first Western-style stone road tunnel in Yamaguchi Prefecture and built as a symbol of Hagi's hopes for revival after the prefectural seat moved to Yamaguchi, it was registered as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 1999.
Former Nomura Family Residence Main House in Yamaguchi: an 1886 sake merchant's townhouse with thick pine beams, open free as the heritage center's Manabikan.
Former Nomura Family Residence Storehouse in Yamaguchi: a clay-walled storehouse of about 1886 on the old Hagi road, built to hold a sake merchant family's goods.
Kinunkaku in Kikko Park, Iwakuni, is the votive hall of 1885 at the shrine to the Kikkawa lords, a two-storey pavilion ringed by a railed upper veranda.
The 1906 brick intake tower at Utsui No. 1 Reservoir, Shimonoseki: its granite-banded top, the 1973 roof change, height figures and how to view it from outside.
A tiny 1906 timber office beside Utsui No. 1 Reservoir in Shimonoseki, with weatherboard walls, tall windows and a curved canopy, and how to view it from the road.
The 1906 brick receiving well at Shimonoseki's Takao plant, where water from Utsui 12 km away first arrives before the filters, with notes on arranged visits.
Shimonoseki's 1906 Takao distribution reservoir: two basins of about 1,600 m² roofed by brick arches in twelve bays under turf, with brick exposed on the north.
A 40.6 m round brick slow sand filter at Shimonoseki's Takao plant, still in use; its shallow 1.2 m water, granite rim and the open question over its build date.
A 1906 round brick valve house at Shimonoseki's Takao plant with a granite cornice and twelve-sided roof; its role in slow sand filtering and which parts are later.
A two-storey timber pavilion of 1873 at Hofu Tenmangu, its floor carried on brackets cut for a five-storey pagoda that was never raised. Registered in 2012.
Raised in 1888 to guard silk from fire and damp, this two-storey plaster storehouse in Hofu has an unusual frame of octagonal beams and now hosts a concert series.
One plastered shell split by a cross wall: food kept to the south, tools to the north under a second floor. Built around 1888, it fronts a Hofu merchant compound.
Built in 1886 as a stopgap home for Iwakuni's former daimyo, this two-storey house sets a thirty-mat upper hall to borrow the Kintaikyo bridge and castle hill.
A cusped-gable gate of about 1901 and a 79-metre latticed fence of 1909 enclosing the medieval main hall of Sumiyoshi Shrine, Shimonoseki. Registered in 2017.