Historic Sites, Places of Scenic Beauty, and Natural Monuments of Shiga

A warring-states castle site in Takashima, Shiga Prefecture, Japan. Three quite separate sites over there make up the whole of it even so even now today.

Kōjō-in Garden, a National Place of Scenic Beauty and Historic Site in the precincts of Mii-dera in Otsu, Shiga, is a Momoyama-period pond-viewing garden laid out around 1601. Its pond extends right to the veranda of the National Treasure Kōjō-in Kyakuden, dissolving the boundary between architecture and water. A tortoise island, stone bridge, night-mooring stones, and a hillside dry-waterfall arrangement showcase early-17th-century garden artistry. Open only by advance reservation for special viewing.

The pond garden of Myojuin at Kongorinji in Aisho, Shiga, a Place of Scenic Beauty since 1990, linking three ponds along the hillside with fine waterfall stonework.

The site of Emperor Shomu's palace at Shigaraki, Shiga, begun in 742 and abandoned in 745, a Historic Site since 1926 with later additions.

Two early Edo gardens at Daitsuji in Nagahama, Shiga, a Place of Scenic Beauty since 1934: a dry garden borrowing Mount Ibuki and a small pond garden with stones.

Chausuyama Kofun is a 122-meter keyhole-shaped burial mound on a ridge above Lake Biwa, built around 1,600 years ago and designated a National Historic Site in 1921.

A National Historic Site since 2020, the Nagahara and Iba Goten in Shiga are remains of palaces used exclusively by the Tokugawa shoguns on the road to Kyoto.

A 4.48-meter granite tahōtō, dated by inscription to 1241, stands on Mount Bodaiji in Konan, Shiga, with carved Jizō and Enma stones at the lost Shōbodai-ji temple.

Hyakusai-ji's grounds in Higashiomi, Shiga, a National Historic Site since 2008, hold 200 terraced ruins of a mountain temple Oda Nobunaga burned in 1573.

At the foot of Mt. Hiei, the 400,000-square-meter precincts of Hiyoshi Taisha hold two National Treasure halls, ancient stone bridges, and Shinto-Buddhist roots.

A national Place of Scenic Beauty in Maibara, this waterless garden centers on a stone waterfall, viewed from a shoin moved from the Azai clan's Odani Castle.

The Minami-Shiga-cho Temple Ruins in Otsu mark a 7th-century temple near the short-lived Otsu capital, with a pagoda foundation stone and a scorpion-pattern tile.

Japan's westernmost hananoki maple and a National Natural Monument in Higashiomi, Shiga. Its hollow trunk fell in 2010, yet it still flowers crimson each April.

A ginkgo at Ryōtoku-ji temple in Maibara bears its seeds along its leaf edges. A National Natural Monument since 1929, it is one of only seven such trees in Japan.