Historic Sites, Places of Scenic Beauty, and Natural Monuments of Yamagata

An Early Jomon settlement at Yonezawa, Yamagata Prefecture, Japan. Its pit dwelling of 43.5 metres is the longest in Japan, and unfinished stone tools abound.

A temple garden at Tsuruoka, Yamagata Prefecture, Japan. Made in 1455 and repaired in 1648, it joins five ponds with three islands and is planted around yew.

A cave site in Takahata, Yamagata Prefecture, Japan. Of its own two caves over there, the lower one has yielded most of the finds even so even now today.

Discover Ichinosawa Cave in Yamagata, a National Historic Site where Japan's earliest pottery was unearthed. Trace the dawn of Jomon culture through this ancient mountain shelter.

A fifth-century keyhole tomb about 96 metres long in the Yonezawa basin, Nanyo, Yamagata, a Historic Site since 1980, notable near the northern limit of tomb culture.

Discover Ōdate Cave in Yamagata, a National Historic Site where some of Japan's oldest pottery was unearthed. Step into a 13,000-year-old Jomon dwelling carved by nature itself.

Tucked into the forested hills of Asahi Town, Yamagata Prefecture, Ōnuma no Ukishima is a National Place of Scenic Beauty where more than thirty islands drift freely across a small mountain pond, even on windless days. Said to have been discovered in 681 CE by the legendary mountain ascetic En no Ozunu, this sacred pond within the precincts of Ukishima Inari Shrine has fascinated travelers for over thirteen centuries, and each July a traditional festival ceremoniously creates a new island upon its waters.

The Oguni Castle Ruins in Tsuruoka City, Yamagata Prefecture, crown the 348.5-meter summit of Mt. Tateyama. With a 235.5-meter rise—the largest of any medieval mountain castle in the prefecture—and rare full-perimeter ramparts, it is a National Historic Site of exceptional value.

Mt. Gassan, 1,984m, is Yamagata's sacred peak of Dewa Sanzan. A 1972 Natural Monument, its summer snowfields and high-moor wetlands shelter 130-plus alpine species.

The Kinowa-no-saku Site in Sakata, Yamagata, preserves a square Heian-period provincial compound 720 meters per side, with reconstructed gates and earthen walls.

The former precinct of Jionji in Sagae, Yamagata, a Historic Site since 2014, with halls, sub-temple plots, medieval fortifications and an ascetic training ground.

On hills above the Yonezawa Basin in Yamagata, the Shimokomatsu Tumulus Group gathers 202 Kofun-period burial mounds, of which 179 form a National Historic Site.

Hōraien, the garden at Sōkōji temple in Sakata, was designated a national Place of Scenic Beauty in 1996, prized for framing a hilltop hall as borrowed scenery.

The Dō-no-mae Site near Sakata preserves a buried Heian-period compound: huge earthfast-post halls and a rare timber raft foundation linked to ancient Dewa Province.