A Cultural Landscape Shaped by Snow
In March 2014, Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs added Higashikusano to the national register of Important Cultural Landscapes. It was the thirty-ninth such site in the country and the fourth in Shiga Prefecture. The three earlier Shiga landscapes all sat beside Lake Biwa; Higashikusano was the first chosen from the mountains.
Higashikusano is not a single village. The name covers four hamlets strung along the upper reaches of the Anegawa River in the far north of Maihara City: Kozuhara, Magatani, Koka, and Yoshitsuki. They occupy a narrow valley pressed between the Ibuki range to the east and the Nanao range to the west. The designated area runs to 2,365.5 hectares, though most of it is forest and steep slope, with the settlements themselves taking up only a thin ribbon of habitable ground.
What earned the recognition was not a building or a single view. It was a way of living. For centuries the people here adapted their houses, their water, and their working year to two facts of local geography: extraordinarily heavy snow, and a position astride the trade roads that crossed the mountains into Mino, the old province now part of Gifu.
Living with Three Metres of Snow
Higashikusano lies in one of the snowiest parts of western Japan. In an ordinary winter the drifts inside the hamlets reach about three metres. Households did not simply wait the season out. They built the snow into the design of the house and the yard.
The clearest sign is the kaidare, a deep eave extended well beyond the wall line. Underneath it lies a covered strip of ground that stays usable when everything around is buried. Farmers kept a doorway clear there, set up snow screens through the winter, and pulled drying crops in under cover when autumn rain threatened. A house without a kaidare would have been cut off from its own entrance for months at a time.
Water did much of the rest. Channels and springs feed small reservoirs called ike, set within each property, and stretches of channel called kawato, dammed with planks or concrete. Running water resists freezing far better than a still snowbank, so these features were turned against the drifts, melting them clear of paths and doorways. The kawato also carried daily life, used for washing clothes, dishes, and vegetables.
The selection was made under the "composite landscape" criterion, which recognises places where several kinds of land use overlap. Higashikusano qualified on three counts at once: water management in the ike and kawato; the trade and movement carried by its roads and open spaces; and the residential pattern of houses, hedges, and homestead plantings. Few rural landscapes show all three so plainly in such a small area.
Four Hamlets, Four Trades
Farming was the base of life in every hamlet, but the long closed-in winters pushed each settlement toward a craft of its own. Kozuhara, the highest, became known for hemp weaving. Magatani produced stone mills, and its masons were skilled enough to travel for work. Koka made shinai, the split-bamboo swords used in kendo practice. Yoshitsuki, the lowest and largest, sat where the valley's roads met; shops and offices gathered there, and it served as the administrative centre for the whole area.
Roads over the passes
The valley was never as isolated as its snow might suggest. Several passes link Higashikusano to Gifu on the far side of the watershed. From Kozuhara, the Shinpo, Shinamata, and Torigoe passes led toward the old villages of Sakauchi and Kuze; the Shinamata route is now cut through by the Oku-Ibuki ski road. Over these tracks moved calves driven up from Omi and the Kansai lowlands, raw cocoons relayed from Mino down to Nagahama, paper mulberry sent out to be worked into washi paper, and charcoal burned in kilns whose remains still dot the hillsides.
The travelling Buddha
One custom shows the cross-border traffic more vividly than any inventory of trade goods. The mawaribotoke, or "circulating Buddha," is a practice of the Jodo Shinshu school in which painted portraits of revered figures pass from temple to temple on a fixed round. In Higashikusano the images of the priests Kennyo and Kyonyo travel from Gyotokuji temple in Kozuhara across the prefectural border to temples in the former Sakauchi village, then return to Kosenji temple in Yoshitsuki. The route ignores the modern boundary entirely, following instead the older logic of the mountain community.
Kozuhara also keeps a set of Noh masks dating to the Muromachi period, now a city-designated cultural property. They are a reminder that performance and literature crossed the passes alongside the cattle and the cocoons.
Visiting Higashikusano
The four hamlets are best reached by car. Coming up the valley, the Oku-Ibuki Furusato Denshokan in Kozuhara makes a natural first stop. The building is a farmhouse more than four hundred years old, once used as a stage for the Noh performances the hamlet was known for; its floorboards run lengthwise so that a performer's sliding steps would not catch. It opens on weekends and public holidays from April to November, between 10:00 and 15:00, and closes for the winter. Admission is free, with a small donation invited. Parking is available at the nearby Kozuhara Exchange Centre.
Kozuhara is also the gateway to the Oku-Ibuki ski area, which draws on the same heavy snowfall that shaped the cultural landscape. Visitors who come in winter will see the snow country at full strength, though the unpaved hamlet lanes are harder to explore then. Late spring through autumn is the easier season for walking among the houses and looking closely at the kaidare eaves and the kawato channels.
Because people still live and farm here, the hamlets are not an open-air museum. Lanes, yards, and water channels all belong to working households. Visitors are asked to keep to public roads and to treat the settlements as the lived-in places they remain.
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Q&A
- What is an Important Cultural Landscape?
- It is a category in Japan's cultural property system for landscapes formed by people's daily life and work in a particular region. Rather than protecting a single monument, it recognises an entire area whose appearance reflects how a community has used its land. Higashikusano was the thirty-ninth site selected nationwide.
- When is the best time to visit?
- Late spring to autumn is easiest for walking through the hamlets and seeing the kaidare eaves and water channels clearly. Winter reveals the three-metre snowfall that explains the whole landscape, but the deep snow limits movement on the smaller lanes.
- How do I get there?
- A car is strongly recommended. The hamlets lie along the upper Anegawa valley in the far north of Maihara City, and public transport into the area is limited. The Oku-Ibuki Furusato Denshokan in Kozuhara is a useful orientation point.
- Can I go inside the houses?
- Most are private homes and are not open to visitors. The Oku-Ibuki Furusato Denshokan in Kozuhara is a historic farmhouse open to the public on weekends and holidays from April to November, and it is the best place to see a traditional interior.
- What does kaidare mean?
- Kaidare is the name for the unusually long eaves on Higashikusano's traditional houses. The eave creates a sheltered strip of ground along the wall that stays usable in deep snow, keeping a doorway clear and providing covered space for work and for drying crops.
Basic Information
| Name | Higashikusano Mountain Village Landscape (東草野の山村景観) |
|---|---|
| Location | Kozuhara, Magatani, Koka, and Yoshitsuki, Maihara City, Shiga Prefecture |
| Designation | Important Cultural Landscape (national) |
| Date selected | 18 March 2014 |
| Selection criterion | Composite landscape (water use; distribution and movement; residence) |
| Designated area | 2,365.5 hectares |
| Also recognised | Component of a Japan Heritage story |
| Access | By car; far northern Maihara City, in the upper Anegawa valley |
References
- Maihara City — National Important Cultural Landscape "Higashikusano Mountain Village Landscape"
- https://www.city.maibara.lg.jp/soshiki/kyoiku/rekishi/shokai/higashikusano/2844.html
- Maihara City — Higashikusano Mountain Village Landscape: development and use plan
- https://www.city.maibara.lg.jp/soshiki/kyoiku/rekishi/shokai/higashikusano/20984.html
- Maihara City — Exchange across the mountain passes
- https://www.city.maibara.lg.jp/kanko/rekishi/shitei/4600.html
Last verified: 2026.05.23