Heritage routes
Japan told in 104 stories
Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs picks areas that share one story: a trade route, a festival, a craft, a people. Follow a story and you visit places most tourists skip, in an order that makes sense.
Region
Theme
Era
104 stories match
- Ibaraki, Niigata, Yamanashi, Miyazaki140 years of Japan Wine: Koshu and Ushiku日本ワイン140年史Japan Wine, made from grapes grown in Japan, began 140 years ago in two towns. In Koshu, Yamanashi, young men trained in France and local farmers built a wine region of about 30 wineries; in Ushiku, Ibaraki, the founder of Tokyo's Kamiya Bar built Japan's first real chateau.
- Kyoto800 years of Japanese tea in Uji and southern Kyoto日本茶800年の歴史散歩Matcha, sencha and gyokuro were all developed in the tea country south of Kyoto. Walk through 800 years of tea: shaded gardens, old merchant houses and one of the oldest tea houses in Japan.
- Fukushima, NaraAizu's 33 Kannon pilgrimage: faith with a day out会津の三十三観音めぐりIn the 1600s, Aizu's lord set up a local pilgrimage to 33 Kannon so his people would not spend months and money travelling to far-off temples. It became a relaxed mix of prayer, hot springs and good food that you can still follow.
- HyogoAko: the town that made Japan's finest salt「日本第一」の塩を産したまち 播州赤穂In the Edo period, Ako on the Seto Inland Sea perfected a way of making salt in tidal fields, and its salt became the most famous brand in Japan. The town still makes about a fifth of Japan's salt, and its port, merchant gardens, carpets and sweets all grew from it.
- MiyazakiAncient monuments: the burial mound landscapes of Miyazaki古代人のモニュメントJapan built over 160,000 burial mounds, called kofun, between the 3rd and 7th centuries, but most were damaged or built over. Only on the Miyazaki plain do they still stand almost as they were, scattered over open plateaus with hardly a building in sight.
- AichiArimatsu: an Edo-era tie-dye town in Nagoya江戸時代の情緒に触れる絞りの産地Twenty minutes by train from central Nagoya, Arimatsu is a 400-year-old shibori tie-dye town on the old Tokaido road. Indigo shibori curtains sway in front of merchant houses, as in Edo-era prints, and you can still buy a shibori towel just as travellers did 200 years ago.
- NaraAsuka: the women who shaped the birth of Japan日本国創成のときWhen Japan first became a state, half of its rulers were women. In Asuka, empresses built capitals and laws, nuns spread Buddhism and women poets wrote some of Japan's earliest verse.
- Ibaraki, TokushimaAwa, home of indigo: the blue that dyed all of Japan藍のふるさと 阿波Meiji-era visitors called Japan a land of mysterious blue, and most of that blue came from Awa, along the Yoshino River in northern Tokushima. Indigo merchants grew so rich that they built castle-like mansions and helped shape Awa Odori, and craftsmen still make the dye the traditional way.
- Hyogo, TokushimaAwaji: the first island in Japan's creation myth『古事記』の冒頭を飾る「国生みの島・淡路」Japan's oldest history book, the Kojiki, opens with the gods creating the islands of Japan, and Awaji comes first. Behind the myth are the ama, sea people who brought metal, made salt and sailed for the early rulers.
- NaganoChikuma, city of the moon: the moon in every rice terrace月の都 千曲For over a thousand years, poets have come to Chikuma in Nagano to see the moon over Mount Obasute. In late May, when the terraced rice fields are flooded, the moon shines in one paddy after another, a sight called tagoto no tsuki, the moon in every field.
- HokkaidoCoal, steel and port: Hokkaido's northern industrial revolution本邦国策を北海道に観よ！In the Meiji era, Japan built Hokkaido's industry from scratch: coal mines in Sorachi, steelworks in Muroran and the port of Otaru, all linked by rail and less than 100 km apart. Hokkaido's population grew about a hundredfold in a century, and the mine towers, canal and factories of that boom still stand.
- TottoriDaisen: Japan's biggest cattle market, born from faith in Jizo地蔵信仰が育んだ日本最大の大山牛馬市For centuries farmers led their cattle and horses up Mt Daisen in Tottori to pray to Jizo for their safety. The temple's market grew into the biggest cattle market in Japan, and helped lay the ground for wagyu.
- Miyagi, NaraDate Masamune's dazzling culture in Sendai and Matsushima政宗が育んだ“伊達”な文化Date Masamune is famous as a warlord, but he was also a man of culture who set out to make Sendai a capital to rival Kyoto. His bold, showy style, called date, still shapes Miyagi today.
- YamagataDewa Sanzan: the journey of rebirth across three mountains自然と信仰が息づく『生まれかわりの旅』In Yamagata, three sacred mountains stand for the present, the past and the future. Walking all three is a journey of rebirth that has drawn pilgrims for centuries, starting with 2,446 stone steps through giant cedars.
- FukuiEchizen-Fukui: 400 years of towns built in stone400年の歴史の扉を開ける旅In Echizen, today's Fukui, towns were built with stone for 400 years: the giant gate walls of the Sengoku-era city of Ichijodani, the mossy stone paths of Heisenji, and a blue-green local stone that colours Fukui's castle walls and streets after rain.
- Hokkaido, Ishikawa, Fukui, Shiga, ShimaneEsashi: the herring town that outshone Edo江差の五月は江戸にもない"Esashi in May beats even Edo," people sang. Herring fishing and trade made this small port in southwest Hokkaido rich, and its merchant houses and storehouses still step down the slope to the sea.
- NiigataFlame-style pottery of the Shinano River: Jomon art from snow country「なんだ、コレは！」 信濃川流域の火焔型土器と雪国の文化About 5,000 years ago, people along the Shinano River in Niigata made pots crowned with wild flame-like rims. When the artist Okamoto Taro saw one he shouted "What on earth is this!". They are among the most striking objects of Japan's Jomon era.
- KochiFrom forest railway to Japan's top yuzu road森林鉄道から日本一のゆずロードへIn eastern Kochi, a forest railway once carried cedar out of the mountains. When the forests ran out, people planted yuzu along its tracks, and the Chugei area now grows more yuzu than anywhere in Japan.
- Shimane, Okayama, HiroshimaFukiya: the birthplace of Japan Red「ジャパンレッド」発祥の地On a plateau about 500 m up in western Okayama, a town of red-brown roofs and red lattices appears out of nowhere. Fukiya grew rich on copper and bengara, a red pigment that coloured Japan's famous porcelain and lacquer and became known abroad as Japan Red.
- GifuGifu: Oda Nobunaga's town of hospitality「信長公のおもてなし」が息づく戦国城下町・岐阜Oda Nobunaga is remembered as a ruthless warlord, but in Gifu he was a generous host. He showed guests his castle, served them himself and took them to watch cormorant fishing, which still runs on the Nagara River.
- Hokkaido, Saitama, NaraGyoda: the town of tabi storehouses和装文化の足元を支え続ける足袋蔵のまち行田Gyoda in Saitama has made tabi, the split-toe socks worn with kimono, for about 300 years, and at its peak made about 80% of Japan's supply. Its back streets are lined with storehouses built to hold them.
- Kanagawa, Shizuoka, NagasakiHakone Hachiri: walking the Edo stone road over Hakone旅人たちの足跡残る悠久の石畳道Hakone Hachiri is the stretch of the old Tokaido road that crosses the Hakone mountains, about 32 km from Odawara to Mishima. The shogunate paved it with the largest stone road in Japan at the time, and teahouses, a checkpoint, cedar and pine avenues and distance mounds still line the way.
- Gifu, Mie, Shiga, NaraHida no Takumi: 1,300 years of master woodworkers in Takayama飛騨匠の技・こころUnder a law of 718, Hida was the only province in Japan that paid its taxes in carpenters, sending about 100 a year to build the capital. Their skill and quiet, honest style still shape Takayama today.
- OsakaHinenosho: a medieval estate next to Kansai Airport旅引付と二枚の絵図が伝えるまちIzumisano, home of Kansai International Airport, was the medieval estate of Hinenosho. Two maps from 1309 and a noble's diary from 1501 describe ponds, channels, shrines and village life that you can still find in the countryside today.