Important Cultural Property of Tokyo

Built in 1914 at the Railway Agency's Shinbashi Works, the wooden Nade 6141 is the oldest surviving bogie electric railcar in Japan and the prototype of today's commuter trains, introducing the three-door layout and multiple-unit control system. Designated a National Important Cultural Property in 2017, it is preserved and displayed at The Railway Museum in Saitama City.

Six Muromachi measuring boxes from Horyuji, now at the Tokyo National Museum, each counted as one sho yet hold 1.47 to 1.87 litres, from before standard units.

An Important Cultural Property at the National Archives of Japan, compiled from castaway Daikokuya Kodayu's account of Russia, with illustrated scrolls and maps.

An Important Cultural Property at the Maeda Ikutokukai: a fragment of the Lotus Sutra's eighth fascicle, dated 1326, brushed by the noble Madenokoji Nobufusa.

Two Kunoji-kyo scrolls at the Gotoh Museum: a Heian decorated Lotus Sutra written one chapter per person by Retired Emperor Toba's court circle around 1141.

Three Kunoji-kyo scrolls at the Tokyo National Museum, a gold-strewn Heian sutra copied by court nobles, ranked Important Cultural Property, not National Treasure.

At the Tokyo National Museum, this Important Cultural Property holds the Lotus Sutra in eight handscrolls, all written in one early-Heian hand on yellow hemp paper.

A handscroll of the fifth Lotus Sutra volume, hand-copied in eighth-century Nara, its even script the mark of the state scriptoria. Held by the Gotoh Museum, Tokyo.

A sutra fragment dedicated in 457 by a Northern Liang king at Gaochang. Its dated colophon and early brushwork make it a key manuscript at Tokyo's Calligraphy Museum.

Uemura Shoen's near life-size mother and child, painted in 1934. An Important Cultural Property at MOMAT in Tokyo, it pictures a married woman of Meiji Kyoto.

A late sword guard by Tsuchiya Yasuchika, signed Tōu. In pierced suaka copper, drying fishing nets meet a flight of plovers, touched with his rubbed gold inlay.

Hosokawa Family Documents at Tokyo's Eisei Bunko: the 2013 designation of 266 papers holds 58 Oda Nobunaga letters; a 2025 addition raised the total to 9,612.

A Korean lacquer box, its black lid covered in a peony scroll of thick mother-of-pearl, a representative example of Joseon inlay brought to Japan by Ouchi trade.

Seven matched gold fittings of peonies and lions, attributed to Goto Yujo, mounted on a guardless short-sword scabbard assembled for the Kaga Maeda house in 1649.

A bokuseki scroll at the Tokyo National Museum: a verse brushed by the Southern Song Zen monk Beijian Jujian in a Suzhou pavilion in 1229, an early tea scroll.

A fragment of the Faju Piyu Jing copied in 4th-century China and dated to 359 CE by its colophon, among the oldest dated Chinese Buddhist manuscripts. Held in Tokyo.

Chinese poems and prose by Fujiwara no Tadamichi, the late-Heian chancellor. Copied in 1183 as war neared Kyoto, this early album is a key witness to his writing.

Volume 197 of the Hossō Ruirin, a Heian legal encyclopedia once said to fill over 200 volumes. This Kanazawa Bunko copy, made in 1304, is an Important Cultural Property.

Discover the Warikōdai Chawan, a 16th-century Korean tea bowl with a daringly cross-cut foot ring, designated an Important Cultural Property and housed at the Ebara Hatakeyama Museum in Shirokanedai, Tokyo. A masterpiece beloved by industrialist-tea master Hatakeyama Sokuō.

Explore the Important Cultural Property 'Kitano Tenjin Engi Emaki (Kōan Version)' at the Tokyo National Museum — eight surviving painted scenes from a 1278 illustrated handscroll depicting the life, exile, and deification of Sugawara no Michizane, Japan's beloved patron deity of scholarship.

Tokyo’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.