Meiji

Raised on a dressed-stone podium in Mima, Tokushima, the 1911 Anrakuji Temple Bell Tower has curved leaning posts, a coffered ceiling and a shachi on its ridge.

Nestled along the Otanigawa in Mima City, Tokushima, this curving stone sabo dam was built in the Meiji era under the guidance of Dutch engineer Johannis de Rijke. It is the only surviving Meiji-era erosion-control dam in Shikoku and the largest of its kind associated with de Rijke in Japan. Its graceful three-tiered stonework now anchors De Rijke Park, where Dutch-style windmills and 15,000 spring tulips honor an engineer whose ideas still hold back the sediment of the Sanuki Mountains today.

The Sanmon gate of Ganshoji Temple in Mima City, Tokushima Prefecture, is a Meiji-era eight-legged gate registered as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2009 for its uniquely creative design, featuring a distinctive flower-head arch opening and elaborate plant motifs. Standing as the entrance to one of Shikoku's oldest temples, it invites visitors to explore a hidden cultural treasure alongside the oldest dry landscape garden in Shikoku and the historic temple district of Mima.

The Former Kawaguchi Post Office Building and Main House in Miyoshi City, Tokushima Prefecture, is a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property built in 1905. This charming wooden structure uniquely combines Western and Japanese architectural styles, featuring painted clapboard siding and traditional lattice windows along the Yoshino River.

A mid-Meiji merchant house on the corner where the approach to Ryozen-ji, temple one of the Shikoku pilgrimage, meets the old Muya Kaido road in Naruto, Tokushima.

Built in 1896 on Ikeda's old tobacco street in Miyoshi City, this timber townhouse carries a projecting fire wall and sea-cucumber tiling. Registered 2016.

The Shimao Family Residence Shop and Main House in Tsuji, Ikawa-cho, Miyoshi City, Tokushima Prefecture, is a nationally registered tangible cultural property that preserves the legacy of this riverside town's prosperity from the tobacco trade of the late Edo and Meiji periods. Discover the architectural charm of this historic merchant house and explore the surrounding attractions of the Iya Valley region.

Discover the Shimao Family Residence Annex (Shimao-ke Jutaku Hanare) in Miyoshi City, Tokushima Prefecture — a registered tangible cultural property showcasing traditional Japanese residential architecture amid the scenic mountains of the Iya Valley region.

An 1897 hall in Tsurugi Town, Tokushima, marking station 28 of the Habashikoku pilgrimage. Open on all four sides, it was registered in 2017 with nine others.

A middle Meiji timber workshop at the rear of a tobacco merchant's lot in Ikeda, Tokushima. Its earth and plank floors record how the shredding work was zoned.

An 1891 merchant house in Ikeda, Tokushima, built on the shredded tobacco trade: a 15.9-metre frontage, tiled fire-break walls at each end, a Western parlour.

The Nakawa Shoten Shikomi-gura in Ikeda, Miyoshi City, Tokushima Prefecture, is a Meiji-era fermentation storehouse registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property. Part of a brewery founded in 1802, this wooden structure features a distinctive log-frame roof creating a vast interior space. Home to the award-winning sake brand Imakomachi, the site offers brewery tours and serves as a gateway to Shikoku's scenic Iya Valley and Oboke Gorge.

A rare two-story wooden lantern above Tokushima's Yoshino River, built 1884. It packs full temple-hall carpentry — fan rafters, cusped windows, kara-hafu gable — into a 15-square-meter structure registered nationally in 2011.

A single-bay yakuimon of the early Meiji era at Hashikuraji in Miyoshi, Tokushima, this gate fronts the abbot's quarters and is finished with a coffered ceiling.

Built in 1896 at the top of Mount Hōju in western Tokushima, Hashikuraji's Temizuya stands at the head of the 278-step Heart Sutra staircase, directly in front of the Honden. Designated a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in October 2011.

Built in 1880 on the old stone path up to Hashikuraji in Miyoshi, Tokushima, this two-storey gate carries Zen-style bracketing, cusped windows and a disputed origin.

Deep in the mountains of Tokushima Prefecture stands Manpukuji, a Kōyasan Shingon temple founded in 1186. Within its quiet precinct sits a small Chinjudō, a guardian-deity hall enshrining the kami who protects the temple. Registered in 2005 as a National Tangible Cultural Property alongside the Main Hall, bell tower, and storehouse, this modest structure preserves the living memory of shinbutsu-shūgō — Japan's centuries-old fusion of Buddhist and Shinto worship — in a rustic, regionally rooted architectural setting.