World heritage世界遺産
Start with the one nearest where you are staying. Twenty-odd sites, and several are not buildings at all but a town, a mountain range or a pilgrim road.
Start with the one nearest where you are staying. Twenty-odd sites, and several are not buildings at all but a town, a mountain range or a pilgrim road.
Japan has more than twenty UNESCO World Heritage sites, cultural and natural. Several are not single buildings but a whole town, a mountain range, a pilgrimage route or an island — which changes how you visit them. You spend a day inside one rather than queueing at a gate.
The listed sites draw crowds. The places below are worth the crowd, but the same prefecture usually has something almost as good with nobody at it, and those are on the prefecture pages. Use the list as a starting point, not a checklist.
Sites are added most years, so the list keeps growing.
Cultural and natural, across the whole country. Each links to its prefecture.
The original white keep, never burned or rebuilt. Fifteen minutes from the shinkansen.
The shrine and gate in the sea at Miyajima.
The building left as it was found, and the museum beside it. A morning, walked slowly.
A living village of thatched farmhouses, with Gokayama in Toyama.
Todaiji, Kasuga Taisha and the deer park, all in one walkable area.
Seventeen separate places, including Kinkakuji, Kiyomizu-dera and Nijo Castle.
Pilgrim paths through mountains between three shrines. Walkable in day sections.
Steep rainforest and thousand-year cedars on an island of its own.
An old silver mine and its town, walked or cycled through the hills.
The most heavily decorated buildings in Japan, in cedar forest.