Important Cultural Property of Shiga

An early Muromachi-period Buddhist main hall in Shiga Prefecture. The Agency's own commentary field for the hall there has been left entirely empty now.

A Buddhist temple guest hall in Otsu, Shiga Prefecture, Japan. One single page there gives two quite different dates for it, half a century apart now.

Built around 1700 inside Hikone Castle, this shingled L-shaped stable kept rows of standing bays for the lord's horses. No comparable building survives in Japan.

This Keicho-era gate turret guards the last approach to the keep of Hikone Castle. Its rear wall is replaced by an open balustraded gallery, a very rare arrangement.

A Keicho-era gate turret at Hikone Castle with a matched corner turret at each end. The stone base joins original masonry on one side to late Edo work on the other.

A three-tiered turret at the north-west corner of Hikone Castle's west bailey, commanding the rear approach across a dry cutting. It was heavily remodelled in 1853.

Rebuilt in 1771 after a fire, this long turret walled one side of the Sawaguchi gate enclosure at Hikone Castle. Its blunt north gable marks a lost gatehouse.

Nine documents by Kawachiya Kashō, a wealthy farmer and brewer, and his heirs reveal how an educated villager in Edo Japan weighed family, learning, and survival.

Discover the 953-item Important Cultural Property collection documenting the achievements of Kunitomo Ikkansai (1778–1840), the 'Edison of the Edo Period.' From Japan's first reflecting telescope and sunspot observation records to the country's first practical air gun, explore the extraordinary scientific legacy born in a small gunsmith village in Shiga Prefecture.

Discover the Ichiji Kinrin Image, a Kamakura-period silk painting designated an Important Cultural Property in 1940 and privately preserved in Ichinobe, Higashiomi, Shiga. Explore the mystical iconography of this supreme esoteric Buddhist deity and the rich cultural heritage of eastern Ōmi.

The stone thirteen-storey pagoda of Anyoji in Ritto, Shiga, made at the end of the Kamakura period, survives today with its ninth, tenth and eleventh tiers missing.

The main hall of Iimichi Shrine in Koka, Shiga, built in 1649, layers a triangular gable and a cusped gable over its three-bay porch, all roofed in cypress bark.

The main hall of Ikuwa Shrine in Yasu, Shiga, from the early Muromachi period, is a one-bay nagare-style hall roofed in cypress bark, designated with 2 ridge tags.

The Kasuga branch shrine at Ikuwa Shrine in Yasu, Shiga, a small nagare-style hall of the late Kamakura period, is thought to be older than the main hall itself.

The main hall of Isasa Shrine in Kusatsu, Shiga, built in 1468, is a one-bay nagare-style hall roofed in cypress bark, designated with two ridge tags.

Four buildings at Ishiyama-dera in Otsu designated in 2008: the Mieido, the cliffside Renjo-do, a once brightly painted shrine and a log sutra house on bedrock.

The late Kamakura belfry of Ishiyama-dera in Otsu, an Important Cultural Property since 1907, with a white skirted base, bark roof and a Heian bell rung from below.

The main gate of Ishiyama-dera in Otsu, an eight-legged gate reshaped around the Keicho era and designated in 1907, with Nio guardians and a Toyotomi crest.

The listed stone hokyointo at Ishiyama-dera in Otsu: the left of 2 pagodas west of the Tahoto, an early Muromachi memorial to Kamegaya Zenni designated in 1961.

A mid-Muromachi one-bay shrine hall with a flowing roof in the Inari Shrine precinct at Yasu, Shiga. Designated in 1917, it once served the vanished Fukurin-ji.

Shiga’s registered properties across designations, with featured heritage and travel notes.

The complete kokuhō catalogue — browse by prefecture, period, and category.

Nationwide jūyō bunkazai — architecture, sculpture, painting, crafts, and documents.