Important Cultural Property of Shimane

The Main Hall of Someha Amenoiwakatsu Shrine in Masuda City, Shimane Prefecture, is an outstanding example of Azuchi-Momoyama period shrine architecture, rebuilt in 1583 by the Masuda clan. Designated a National Important Cultural Property in 1929, the vermillion-lacquered hall features exquisite kaeru-mata carvings and cypress bark roofing. Founded in 725, this ancient shrine also preserves a massive sacred rock cliff representing primordial iwakura worship.

Takuhi Shrine, perched within a natural rock cavern on the slopes of Mt. Takuhi on Nishinoshima Island in the Oki Islands of Shimane Prefecture, is renowned for its extraordinary setting where sacred architecture merges with the mountain itself. The main hall, prefabricated in Osaka in 1732 and assembled on site, together with the connecting hall and worship hall, forms the oldest surviving shrine complex in the Oki Islands, designated as an Important Cultural Property of Japan in 1992. Revered for centuries as the guardian deity of maritime safety across the Sea of Japan, the shrine was famously depicted by ukiyo-e masters Hiroshige and Hokusai.

The Former Dōmen Family Residence in Yoshika Town, Shimane Prefecture, is an Important Cultural Property of Japan that authentically preserves the living conditions of ordinary farming families during the Edo period. This remarkably rare surviving example of a modest common farmer's dwelling features a thatched hipped-gable roof and compact design reflecting the practical needs of rural mountain life in the Iwami region.

An 18th-century farmhouse in Unnan, Shimane, and an Important Cultural Property. Its great hall is held open without posts by raised nobori-bari beams.

Built in 1374, the Main Hall of Manpuku-ji in Masuda, Shimane is a National Important Cultural Property. The seven-by-seven-bay hip-roofed hall preserves Kamakura-period architectural traditions, and behind it lies one of Sesshu Toyo's celebrated four great gardens, together evoking the cultural flowering of the medieval Masuda clan.

On the rugged island of Dōgo in Japan's remote Oki Islands stands Mizuwakasu Shrine, the highest-ranked shrine of the former Oki Province. Its Main Hall, rebuilt in 1795, is a nationally designated Important Cultural Property celebrated for its rare Oki-zukuri architectural style — a hybrid found nowhere else in Japan. With its dramatic thatched gable roof, ancient pine-lined approach, classical sumo ring, and biennial festival of yamabiki and yabusame, this shrine offers travelers a profound encounter with island spirituality and over a thousand years of recorded history.