Museums, zoos & aquariums in Japan

Places in Japan of this type, by prefecture.

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• Asahiyama Zoo Hokkaido
  A zoo famous for letting you watch animals up close — penguins walk through the snow in winter.
• Sapporo Beer Museum Hokkaido
  A Meiji-era red-brick building telling how beer-making began in Sapporo as part of Hokkaido's development. Paid tastings follow the visit.
• Sapporo Maruyama Zoo Hokkaido
  Hokkaido's first zoo, opened in 1951, with about 140 species. Newer homes include a polar bear house and an elephant house.
• Shiretoko Nature Center Hokkaido
  Visitor center of Shiretoko National Park run by the Shiretoko Nature Foundation, with the KINETOKO mega-screen theatre, exhibits and shops. It is also the start of the Furepe Falls trail (about 1 km one way, free all year).
• Upopoy National Ainu Museum and Park Hokkaido
  A national museum and lakeside park on Ainu culture, with exhibits, rebuilt houses and daily dance and music performances.
• Aomori Museum of Art Aomori
  A white, trench-cut museum next to the Sannai-Maruyama site, home to Yoshitomo Nara's 8.5 m 'Aomori-ken' dog and Chagall's huge Aleko backdrops.
• Korekawa Jomon Museum Aomori
  A Hachinohe museum of Jomon finds, including the National Treasure clay figure with clasped hands and fine red-lacquered wares.
• Memorial Ship Hakkoda-maru Aomori
  A former Aomori–Hakodate railway ferry moored by Aomori Station. Inside are rail cars on the car deck, the engine room and a 1950s station diorama.
• Nebuta Museum Wa Rasse Aomori
  A museum by Aomori Station showing full-size lantern floats from the Aomori Nebuta Festival, with festival music performances.
• Shayokan (Dazai Osamu Memorial Hall) Aomori
  The large Meiji-era family home where novelist Dazai Osamu was born, now a museum of his life in Kanagi.
• Shirakami-Sanchi World Heritage Center Nishimeya Aomori
  The Ministry of the Environment's Shirakami-Sanchi center in Nishimeya Village, with an exhibition and reference corner. It is also a base for research on the World Heritage area.
• Tachineputa Museum Aomori
  A museum in Goshogawara housing the giant festival floats of the Tachineputa festival, about 23 m tall, viewed from a spiral ramp.
• Towada Art Center Aomori
  A contemporary art museum of separate glass pavilions, each holding one large work, with more artworks spread along Towada's main avenue.
• Esashi Fujiwara Heritage Park Iwate
  A 20-hectare theme park recreating Heian-period buildings at full size, from the Oshu Fujiwara clan’s halls to a golden hall. It is a frequent filming location for historical dramas.
• Iwate Bank Red Brick Building Iwate
  A 1911 red-brick bank with a green dome by the Nakatsu River, designed by the office of Tatsuno Kingo, architect of Tokyo Station. The old banking hall is open to visitors.
• Iwate Tsunami Memorial and Takata-Matsubara Iwate
  A free museum in the Takata-Matsubara Memorial Park telling the facts and lessons of the 2011 tsunami. The 'Miracle Pine' that survived the wave stands nearby.
• Miyazawa Kenji Memorial Museum Iwate
  A museum on Koshiozan hill in Hanamaki about the poet and children's author Miyazawa Kenji, covering his writing, science, farming work and music.
• Morioka Takuboku & Kenji Seishunkan Iwate
  A free museum in the former 90th Bank building of 1910, about the youth of poets Ishikawa Takuboku and Miyazawa Kenji in Morioka. It has a small cafe.
• Kesennuma Earthquake Memorial Museum Miyagi
  The former Koyo High School damaged by the 2011 tsunami and kept as a ruin, with a centre telling the lessons of the disaster.
• Akita City Folk Performing Arts Center (Neburi Nagashi-kan) Akita
  A small hall about Akita's festivals where you can try lifting a real Kanto lantern pole used in the August Kanto Festival.
• Akita Inu no Sato (Akita Dog Visitor Center) Akita
  A visitor centre in Odate, hometown of the faithful dog Hachiko, built to look like the old Shibuya Station. You can watch a real Akita dog through glass and visit an Akita dog museum.
• Akita Museum of Art Akita
  A museum facing Senshu Park, centred on Tsuguharu Foujita's huge mural 'Events of Akita'.
• Namahage Museum & Oga Shinzan Folklore Museum Akita
  Two neighbouring halls on the Oga Peninsula: one shows over 150 Namahage masks, the other stages the New Year's Eve Namahage visit in an old farmhouse.
• Oga Aquarium GAO Akita
  An aquarium on the Oga coast with a large tank of local sea life, polar bears and penguins, and Akita's prefectural fish, hatahata, on show all year.
• Shirakami-Sanchi World Heritage Center Fujisato Akita
  A Ministry of the Environment center at the southern foot of Shirakami-Sanchi. It helps visitors learn about the World Heritage area, with a resident nature adviser to explain.
• Bunshokan (Former Yamagata Prefectural Office) Yamagata
  A brick government building of 1916 that served as the prefectural office and assembly hall until 1975; restored to its original look and open free, with a working clock tower.
• Chido Museum Yamagata
  A museum beside Tsuruoka Park on the former Sakai lords' retreat, gathering Meiji-era Western-style public buildings and a thatched farmhouse that are Important Cultural Properties.
• Homma Museum of Art Yamagata
  The former guesthouse and garden of the Homma merchant family of Sakata, opened in 1947 as one of Japan's first private art museums in a regional city.
• Kamo Aquarium (Kamosui) Yamagata
  A seaside aquarium in Tsuruoka famous for showing more species of jellyfish than any other, with a large tank of 10,000 moon jellies; it reopened after renewal in April 2026.
• Ken Domon Museum of Photography Yamagata
  Japan's first museum devoted to photography (1983), holding all the work of photographer Ken Domon. The building is by Yoshio Taniguchi, with a sculpture by Isamu Noguchi and a garden by Hiroshi Teshigahara.
• Aizu Clan School Nisshinkan Fukushima
  A faithful reconstruction of the Aizu domain school founded in 1803, where the young Byakkotai samurai studied. You can try Japanese archery or paint an akabeko red cow.
• Aquamarine Fukushima Fukushima
  A large aquarium at Onahama Port built around the meeting of the cold Oyashio and warm Kuroshio currents off Fukushima, with an outdoor touch pool and fishing experiences.
• Hideyo Noguchi Memorial Museum Fukushima
  A museum on the life of bacteriologist Hideyo Noguchi, near Lake Inawashiro. His birthplace, a farmhouse built in 1823, is preserved on site with the hearth where he burned his hand as a baby.
• Aqua World Ibaraki Prefectural Oarai Aquarium Ibaraki
  A large aquarium on the Oarai coast with about 580 species, known for its big shark collection, ocean sunfish and daily dolphin and sea lion shows.
• JAXA Tsukuba Space Center Ibaraki
  Japan's main space research centre. The free Space Dome shows real rockets, satellites and a full-size model of the Kibo ISS module.
• Kasama Arts Forest Park & Ibaraki Ceramic Art Museum Ibaraki
  A hillside park in the Kasama pottery town. It holds the Ibaraki Ceramic Art Museum, the first prefectural museum devoted to ceramics in eastern Japan, and a craft area for pottery workshops.
• Shunpu Banri-so (Rosanjin's House) Ibaraki
  The thatched Edo-period farmhouse where artist Kitaoji Rosanjin lived, moved here from Kita-Kamakura, with his own furniture and a large garden.
• British & Italian Embassy Villa Memorial Parks Tochigi
  Two restored lakeside villas recall Lake Chuzenji's days as an international summer retreat: Ernest Satow's villa of 1896, later used by the British Embassy, and the Italian Embassy villa of 1928 designed by Antonin Raymond.
• Oya History Museum (Oya Stone Quarry) Tochigi
  A vast former underground quarry of Oya stone: about 20,000 square metres of space up to 60 m below ground, cool all year.
• Usui Pass Railway Heritage Park Gunma
  A railway park on the site of the old Yokokawa depot, where trains once climbed the steep Usui Pass. About 40 railway cars are on show, and you can ride mini trains.
• Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel Saitama
  A giant flood-control facility whose pillared surge tank, nicknamed the 'underground temple', can be toured on booked visits.
• Ogawa Washi Paper (Washi Experience Center) Saitama
  Try making washi by hand in Ogawa, home of Hosokawa-shi paper; the town's center teaches the whole process from raw fibre to sheet.
• Omiya Bonsai Village & Bonsai Art Museum Saitama
  A quiet district of bonsai gardens founded about 100 years ago, with the world's first public art museum devoted to bonsai.
• The Railway Museum (Omiya) Saitama
  JR East's railway museum in Omiya, opened in 2007, with real rolling stock and hands-on exhibits in five zones: trains, history, work, science and the future.
• Tokorozawa Sakura Town (Kadokawa Culture Museum) Saitama
  A culture complex by Kadokawa whose rock-like museum was designed with Kengo Kuma. Inside, the Bookshelf Theatre surrounds you with shelves about 8 m high and projection mapping.
• Boso no Mura Open-Air Museum Chiba
  A hands-on museum recreating a late-Edo street of merchant houses, samurai homes and farms, set beside a large group of ancient burial mounds.
• Kamogawa Sea World Chiba
  A marine-life park on the Pacific coast at Kamogawa, known for its orca, dolphin, sea lion and beluga performances.
• Museum of Aeronautical Sciences Chiba
  Japan's first museum devoted to aviation, right beside Narita Airport, with large moving models, flight simulators and a deck overlooking the runway.
• National Museum of Japanese History (Rekihaku) Chiba
  A large national museum in the grounds of Sakura Castle that tells Japan's story from prehistory to modern times with real objects, replicas and models.
• Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum Tokyo
  An open-air museum in Koganei Park where historic buildings from the Edo period to the Showa era, from farmhouses to shops, a bathhouse and Western-style homes, have been moved and restored.
• National Museum of Western Art Tokyo
  A museum of Western art from the Renaissance to the mid-20th century, built on the Matsukata Collection. Its main building, designed by Le Corbusier, became a World Heritage site in 2016.
• Tokyo National Museum Tokyo
  Japan's national museum in Ueno Park, showing Japanese and Asian art and archaeology, including many National Treasures in rotation.
• Hakone Open-Air Museum Kanagawa
  An outdoor museum showing about 120 modern sculptures on lawns facing the Hakone mountains, with a Picasso pavilion and a hot-spring footbath.
• Japan Open-Air Folk House Museum (Nihon Minkaen) Kanagawa
  An open-air museum in the Ikuta Ryokuchi woods with 25 old farmhouses and other buildings from eastern Japan, several of them Important Cultural Properties.
• Memorial Ship Mikasa Kanagawa
  A battleship built in Britain in 1902 that served as flagship of the Combined Fleet in the Russo-Japanese War. Preserved in Mikasa Park as the world's oldest surviving steel battleship, it shows records and models from the period on board.
• Pola Museum of Art Kanagawa
  Opened in 2002, this museum is built to blend into the forest of Sengokuhara in Hakone. Its collection centres on Western painting from the Impressionists to the 20th century, including Monet, Renoir and Picasso, and a forest trail runs through the grounds.
• Fossa Magna Museum (Itoigawa) Niigata
  A geology museum of the Itoigawa Geopark explaining the Fossa Magna rift that split Japan, with a large collection of jade and other minerals.
• Matsudai Nohbutai Field Museum (Echigo-Tsumari Art Field) Niigata
  A hub of the Echigo-Tsumari Art Field. From the MVRDV-designed Nohbutai building to Matsudai Castle, about 40 artworks, including Yayoi Kusama and the Kabakovs’ “The Rice Field”, dot 2 km of terraced hillside.
• Northern Culture Museum (Ito Family Residence) Niigata
  The vast former home of the Ito family, Niigata's great landowners, with a 100-mat hall facing a stroll garden; famous for a huge wisteria and autumn leaves.
• Toki Forest Park (Sado) Niigata
  A park devoted to the Japanese crested ibis, where you can see the birds up close in a large aviary and learn about their return to the wild on Sado.
• Hotaruika (Firefly Squid) Museum Toyama
  A museum devoted to the firefly squid of Toyama Bay. From March 20 to late May, live squid glow blue in a light show; the rest of the year a show uses luminous plankton instead.
• Toyama Glass Art Museum (TOYAMA Kirari) Toyama
  Contemporary glass art inside Kengo Kuma's wood-clad TOYAMA Kirari building, including a permanent Dale Chihuly installation.
• Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art and Design (TAD) Toyama
  A glass-fronted museum by architect Hiroshi Naito beside Kansui Park, with modern art from Picasso and Chagall onward plus posters and chairs. The free rooftop “Onomatopoeia Rooftop” has playful works by Taku Satoh.
• Uozu Buried Forest Museum Toyama
  Roots of an ancient cedar forest, buried about 2,000 years ago and now below sea level, shown in water tanks and on dry display.
• 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art Ishikawa
  A round glass museum of modern art. Look up through the famous 'swimming pool' artwork.
• D.T. Suzuki Museum Ishikawa
  A quiet museum on Kanazawa-born Buddhist thinker D.T. Suzuki, built around a shallow water garden meant for contemplation.
• Ishikawa Prefectural Library Ishikawa
  A library opened in 2022, designed by Mitsuru Senda with a facade like turning pages. Its circular, colosseum-like reading hall, digital art and over 100 kinds of chairs make it worth a visit even for travelers.
• Ishikawa Red Brick Museum (Ishikawa Prefectural History Museum) Ishikawa
  A museum housed in three red-brick former army arsenal buildings, an Important Cultural Property. Real artifacts and dioramas trace Ishikawa's history from ancient times to the modern era.
• Kanazawa Umimirai Library Ishikawa
  A white box of a library whose walls are pierced by about 6,000 round windows. Opened in 2011, it is one bright open room, with a full-height void over about 60% of the north side.
• National Crafts Museum Ishikawa
  Japan's national museum of crafts and design, moved from Tokyo to Kanazawa in 2020. It occupies two relocated Meiji-era army buildings: the former 9th Division headquarters (1898) and the Kanazawa Kaikosha officers' club (1909).
• Notojima Aquarium Ishikawa
  A hands-on aquarium on Notojima Island. Its large circular tank has been renewed as the 'Noto Kaiyu Kairo', and a newly arrived whale shark has been on show since September 2026.
• Seisonkaku Villa Ishikawa
  A residence built in 1863 beside Kenrokuen for the widow of the 12th Maeda lord. The elegant rooms, rich in painted birds and flowers, host seasonal exhibitions of the Maeda family's costumes and treasures.
• Echizen Pottery Village Fukui
  A 12-hectare pottery park in the home of Echizen ware, one of Japan's Six Ancient Kilns. Learn its history at the Fukui Prefectural Ceramics Museum and the Echizen Old Kiln Museum, and try hand-building or painting classes.
• Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum Fukui
  One of the world's great dinosaur museums, with dozens of full skeletons and moving models.
• Fukui Prefectural Varve Museum Fukui
  A museum showing the varves of Lake Suigetsu, striped lakebed sediment laid down over 70,000 years. The full 45 m record, a world standard for dating, is displayed like stained glass.
• Port of Humanity Tsuruga Museum Fukui
  Tells how Polish orphans in the 1920s and Jewish refugees with 'visas for life' in 1940 landed at Tsuruga port.
• Takefu Knife Village Fukui
  A shared workshop run by 14 Echizen knife makers, where you can watch blacksmiths forging blades and join knife-making classes.
• Itchiku Kubota Art Museum Yamanashi
  Shows the dyed kimono art of Itchiku Kubota, who revived the 'tsujigahana' technique, in buildings and gardens designed around his work.
• Kiyoharu Art Colony Yamanashi
  An art village in the woods with buildings by Yoshio Taniguchi, Tadao Ando and Terunobu Fujimori and the round studio 'La Ruche' designed by Gustave Eiffel. Old cherry trees bloom here in spring.
• Former Kaichi School Nagano
  A Western-style elementary school built in 1876 by local carpenters, now a National Treasure. You can tour both floors of the original building in slippers.
• Chiune Sugihara Memorial Hall Gifu
  A museum in Sugihara's home town on the diplomat who issued transit visas that saved thousands of Jewish refugees in Lithuania in 1940.
• Hida Folk Village (Hida no Sato) Gifu
  An open-air museum of more than 30 old farmhouses moved from around Hida, including thatched gassho-style houses, set around a pond with craft demonstrations.
• Mosaic Tile Museum Tajimi Gifu
  A museum in Kasahara, Tajimi, birthplace of glazed porcelain mosaic tiles. The building by Terunobu Fujimori looks like a clay quarry hill; inside are tile collections, history displays and a hands-on workshop.
• Site of Reversible Destiny – Yoro Park Gifu
  A walk-through artwork by Shusaku Arakawa and Madeline Gins, opened in 1995. Across about 18,000 m², slopes, hollows and maze-like pavilions with almost no level or vertical lines throw off your balance and sense of distance.
• Takayama Festival Floats Exhibition Hall (Yatai Kaikan) Gifu
  A hall in the grounds of Sakurayama Hachimangu Shrine that shows four of the eleven ornate floats from the autumn Takayama Festival, changed three times a year.
• MOA Museum of Art Shizuoka
  An art museum on the hill above Atami with Japanese and Asian art, a sea view from the lobby, and a Japanese garden with a tea house.
• Cultural Path Futabakan Aichi
  The Taisho-era Western-style home of Kawakami Sadayakko, called Japan's first actress, moved and rebuilt in the Cultural Path area of Nagoya.
• Ghibli Park Aichi
  Five areas recreating the worlds of Studio Ghibli films inside Expo 2005 Aichi Commemorative Park, including Satsuki and Mei's House and Howl's Castle. Tickets are reserved in advance.
• Museum Meiji-mura Aichi
  An open-air museum of more than 60 buildings, mostly from the Meiji era, moved here to save them, including the entrance of Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel.
• Nagoya City Science Museum Aichi
  A hands-on science museum in central Nagoya with one of the world's largest planetarium domes, 35 m across.
• Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium Aichi
  A large aquarium at Nagoya Port with a journey from Japan's seas to the Antarctic, and dolphin shows in a 60 m pool.
• SCMaglev and Railway Park Aichi
  JR Central's railway museum with 39 real trains, from steam locomotives to Shinkansen and the record-setting maglev, plus a large model railway.
• Tokugawa Art Museum Aichi
  Treasures of the Owari Tokugawa lords, from armour to tea utensils, in rooms that recreate a daimyo's residence. Holds the Tale of Genji scrolls.
• Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology Aichi
  In the red-brick spinning mill where the Toyota group began, with working looms and an automobile hall showing how cars are made.
• Iga-ryu Ninja Museum Mie
  A museum about the Iga ninja in Ueno Park. Guides show the hidden tricks of an old farmhouse, and real ninja tools are on display.
• Mikimoto Pearl Island Mie
  The small island in Toba Bay where Kokichi Mikimoto first cultured pearls in 1893. It has a pearl museum and daily ama diver demonstrations.
• Rokkaen Mie
  The residence of Kuwana businessman Moroto Seiroku II, completed in 1913. A Western house with a four-story tower by Josiah Conder, architect of the Rokumeikan, stands beside a Japanese wing and a pond stroll garden.
• Toba Aquarium Mie
  A large aquarium by Toba Bay that keeps about 1,200 species. It is the only place in Japan where you can see a dugong.
• Koka-ryu Ninja House Shiga
  The Edo-period home of Mochizuki Izumo-no-kami, head of the Koka ninja families, with hidden doors, pits and real ninja tools.
• MIHO MUSEUM Shiga
  An art museum in the Shigaraki hills designed by I. M. Pei on the theme of a hidden paradise; over 80% of the building is underground.
• Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park Shiga
  A hillside park on the theme of ceramics in the pottery town of Shigaraki, with a ceramics museum, a Shigaraki ware gallery and large outdoor works.
• National Museum of Ethnology Osaka
  One of the world's largest ethnology museums, in Expo '70 Commemorative Park. About 12,000 everyday objects and costumes take you around the world region by region.
• Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan Osaka
  One of the world's largest aquariums, built around a huge Pacific tank with whale sharks.
• Osaka Museum of History Osaka
  Next to Osaka Castle Park, it traces the city's 1,400 years with full-size reconstructions and models; the top floor looks onto the castle.
• Osaka Museum of Housing and Living Osaka
  A life-size reconstruction of an Osaka street from the 1830s, plus displays on homes and neighbourhoods from the Meiji to Showa eras.
• Sayamaike Pond & Museum Osaka
  Sayamaike, built around 616, is Japan's oldest dam-type reservoir. The free prefectural museum, designed by Tadao Ando, displays a cut section of the old embankment and wooden water pipes.
• Tekijuku Osaka
  The Kitahama townhouse where doctor Ogata Koan ran his school of medicine and Dutch studies from 1838 to 1862, restored inside.
• Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institution (Earthquake Museum) Hyogo
  A museum on the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, with films recreating the quake, records of the recovery and hands-on disaster-prevention exhibits.
• Ikuno Silver Mine Hyogo
  A silver mine worked for centuries and modernised by the Meiji government with French engineers. Visitors walk through about 1 km of old tunnels.
• Nara National Museum Nara
  Known as the 'temple of Buddhist art', with Buddhist statues and paintings from across Japan. Each autumn it hosts the Shosoin Exhibition of imperial treasures from the 8th century.
• Inamura-no-Hi Museum and Hiromura Embankment Wakayama
  A museum on Hamaguchi Goryo, who lit rice sheaves to guide villagers to safety in the 1854 tsunami and then built a sea wall that still stands.
• Gosho Aoyama Manga Factory Tottori
  A museum in the hometown of the creator of Detective Conan, with reproduction art, his recreated studio and hands-on displays of the series' gadgets and tricks.
• Sand Museum Tottori
  Huge sand sculptures by artists from around the world, built on a new theme each year beside the Tottori Sand Dunes and lit up after dark.
• Tottori Prefectural Museum of Art Tottori
  Tottori's prefectural art museum in Kurayoshi, designed by Maki and Associates led by Fumihiko Maki. It shows work by Japanese and international artists, and entry to the building is free.
• Adachi Museum of Art Shimane
  Its garden has topped a US journal's ranking of Japanese gardens every year since 2003 — framed through the windows like a living painting.
• Lafcadio Hearn (Koizumi Yakumo) Memorial Museum Shimane
  A museum on the writer Lafcadio Hearn, who introduced Japanese life and ghost stories to the world, with his papers and readings of local tales.
• Shimane Museum of Ancient Izumo Shimane
  Next to Izumo Taisha, showing 358 bronze swords and 39 bronze bells (National Treasures) and a model of the shrine's legendary towering hall.
• Yakumotatsu Fudoki-no-Oka Shimane
  A park and museum in the ancient political heart of Izumo, with burial mounds nearby and finds, manuscripts and models from the Nara period.
• Nagi Museum of Contemporary Art (Nagi MOCA) Okayama
  Designed by Arata Isozaki and opened in 1994, the museum fuses building and artwork in three rooms named Sun, Moon and Earth, including a tilted cylinder by Arakawa and Gins.
• Ohara Museum of Art Okayama
  Japan's first private museum centred on Western art, opened in 1930 in Kurashiki in memory of the painter Kojima Torajiro.
• Former Imperial Naval Academy (JMSDF 1st Service School), Etajima Hiroshima
  The former Imperial Japanese Naval Academy on Etajima, now the JMSDF 1st Service School. Guided campus tours take in the historic buildings and the Naval History Museum, which displays about 1,000 items.
• Fude no Sato Kobo (Kumano Brush Museum) Hiroshima
  A museum in Kumano, a brush-making town, built around the world's largest brush. Certified traditional craftsmen demonstrate how Kumano brushes are made, and there are hands-on corners.
• Okuda Genso and Sayume Art Museum Hiroshima
  A museum for the Nihonga painter Okuda Genso and his wife, doll artist Okuda Sayume. The lobby is designed to show off the moon, and on full-moon days the museum stays open until 21:00.
• Yamato Museum (Kure Maritime Museum) Hiroshima
  A museum in the former naval port of Kure on shipbuilding and the battleship Yamato, centred on a 1/10 scale model of the ship.
• Kaneko Misuzu Memorial Museum Yamaguchi
  A museum on the site of the bookshop where children's poet Kaneko Misuzu grew up, in the fishing town of Senzaki. Her rebuilt home and exhibits trace her life and poems.
• Awa Odori Kaikan Tokushima
  A hall at the foot of Mt. Bizan where you can watch Awa Odori dance shows all year and learn the steps, with a small museum on the dance's history.
• Naruto German House Tokushima
  Museum on the Bando POW camp, where German prisoners of WWI shared baking, farming and music with locals and gave Asia's first performance of Beethoven's Ninth.
• Otsuka Museum of Art Tokushima
  About 1,000 Western masterpieces from 190+ museums in 26 countries, reproduced full-size on ceramic boards, including rebuilt chapel interiors. The route is about 4 km long.
• Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum Kagawa
  The studio, home and sculpture garden of sculptor Isamu Noguchi, kept as he left them. About 150 works can be seen on a guided visit.
• Kanamaruza (Old Konpira Grand Theatre) Kagawa
  Built in 1835, the oldest surviving kabuki theatre in Japan. Visitors can walk the stage, the trapdoors and the backstage machinery when there is no performance.
• Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art (MIMOCA) Kagawa
  A museum right in front of Marugame Station, designed by Yoshio Taniguchi, showing works by painter Genichiro Inokuma and contemporary art. Closed for renovation until March 2027.
• Naoshima Art Island Kagawa
  A small island of modern art museums by the sea, and Yayoi Kusama's famous polka-dot pumpkins.
• Shikoku Mura Open-Air Museum Kagawa
  An open-air museum in the woods at the foot of Yashima, where old farmhouses, storehouses and other buildings moved from across Shikoku line a walking path.
• Teshima Art Museum Kagawa
  A single shell-like space by artist Rei Naito and architect Ryue Nishizawa on a hill above rice terraces. Inside, water springs from the floor throughout the day.
• Twenty-Four Eyes Movie Village Kagawa
  The open-air set of the film "Twenty-Four Eyes" on Shodoshima, rebuilt as a small Taisho/early-Showa village by the sea, with a wooden school, a cinema and a literature museum. The real cape branch school is nearby.
• Bansuiso Ehime
  A French-style villa built in 1922 for a former Matsuyama lord, standing in the woods below Matsuyama Castle and now used for exhibitions.
• Murakami Kaizoku Museum Ehime
  A museum on Oshima about the Murakami sea clan who controlled the Seto Inland Sea, with ship models, armour and documents, facing their island fortress of Noshima.
• Saka no Ue no Kumo Museum Ehime
  A museum designed by Tadao Ando about Shiba Ryotaro's novel and the three Matsuyama men at its centre, telling the story of Meiji-era Japan.
• Tobe-yaki Traditional Industry Hall Ehime
  The only museum in Tobe devoted to Tobe-yaki, a white porcelain with indigo designs designated a national traditional craft. Historic pieces and panels on how it is made; kilns are scattered around the town.
• Ekin-gura Museum Kochi
  A museum in Akaoka, Konan, devoted to the kabuki-scene folding screens of Kinzo, known as 'Ekin', a Tosa painter of the late Edo period. One room recreates a festival night viewed by lantern light, and stored screens can be seen through peepholes.
• Kumo no Ue Gallery, Yusuhara Kochi
  A bridge-like gallery in the mountain town of Yusuhara designed by Kengo Kuma with local timber, explaining the other Kuma buildings in town.
• Sakamoto Ryoma Memorial Museum Kochi
  A prefectural museum on Urado Shiroyama hill by Katsurahama about Sakamoto Ryoma, the Kochi-born hero of the late Edo period, with a new wing added in 2018.
• Yanase Takashi Memorial Hall (Anpanman Museum) Kochi
  A city museum in the hometown of Anpanman creator Takashi Yanase, showing his original artwork and a diorama of Anpanman's world.
• Fukuoka Art Museum Fukuoka
  A museum by architect Kunio Maekawa in Ohori Park, with works by Miró, Dalí and Chagall, painters from Kyushu, and Asian antiquities.
• Fukuoka City Museum Fukuoka
  Tells the story of Fukuoka as Japan's gateway to Asia. The National Treasure Gold Seal and the famous spear Nihongo are on permanent display.
• Hakata Machiya Folk Museum Fukuoka
  Across from Kushida Shrine, built around a Meiji-era townhouse. It introduces old Hakata life, festivals and dialect, with live craft demonstrations.
• Imperial Steel Works Former Head Office Viewpoint Fukuoka
  A viewing area for the red-brick former head office of the Imperial Steel Works (1899), part of the Meiji Industrial Revolution World Heritage site. The building stands inside a working steelworks, so it is seen from outside.
• Kyushu National Museum Fukuoka
  A national museum in Dazaifu that shows how Japan's culture grew through exchange with Asia, in a large glass building in the hills.
• Former Karatsu Bank (Tatsuno Kingo Memorial) Saga
  A red-brick bank completed in 1912 under the supervision of Karatsu-born architect Tatsuno Kingo, designer of Tokyo Station. The upper floor has an exhibition on Tatsuno.
• Former Takatori Residence Saga
  The seaside mansion of a Meiji-era coal baron, mixing Japanese and Western rooms, with a Noh stage and 72 painted cedar doors.
• Karatsu Hikiyama Exhibition Hall Saga
  All 14 giant floats (hikiyama) of the Karatsu Kunchi festival are on show year-round. The hall is temporarily in a site near Karatsu Station while it is rebuilt.
• Kyushu Ceramic Museum Saga
  A free museum in Arita covering 400 years of Arita porcelain and pottery from across Kyushu, including old Imari exported to Europe.
• Mietsu Naval Dock Site Saga
  Site of the Saga domain's naval base where Japan's first practical steamship was built; a museum uses CG and a full-size dock model to explain it.
• Saga Castle History Museum Saga
  A free museum in the rebuilt main palace of Saga Castle, telling how the Saga domain led Japan's modernisation at the end of the Edo period.
• Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum & Peace Park Nagasaki
  The museum shows the damage of the 1945 atomic bombing and the history of nuclear weapons; the hypocenter and Peace Park are nearby.
• Amakusa Christian Museum Kumamoto
  A museum on the hill above central Hondo about the Shimabara-Amakusa Rebellion and Hidden Christians, including Amakusa Shiro's battle flag (an Important Cultural Property).
• Former Bungo-Mori Roundhouse Oita
  A fan-shaped steam locomotive shed of 1934 with its turntable, the only one left in Kyushu, near Bungo-Mori Station with a small railway museum.
• Oita Prefectural Art Museum (OPAM) Oita
  A glass-fronted art museum by architect Shigeru Ban in central Oita, with a free open atrium, a café and a shop, plus collection and special exhibitions.
• Takasakiyama Natural Zoo Oita
  Wild Japanese macaques come down from Mt Takasaki to a feeding ground where staff explain their behaviour; a small monorail runs up to the site.
• Miyakonojo Shimazu Residence Miyazaki
  The residence where the Miyakonojo Shimazu family lived from 1879. Its grounds of about 5,000 tsubo hold the main house, a kendo hall, a stone storehouse and the Miyakonojo Shimazu Denshokan, which keeps and displays over 10,000 historical documents.
• Chiran Peace Museum for Kamikaze Pilots Kagoshima
  A museum on the former army airfield at Chiran showing letters, photos and belongings of the young pilots sent on suicide missions in the 1945 Battle of Okinawa.
• Kagoshima City Aquarium (Io World) Kagoshima
  A bayside aquarium facing Sakurajima with about 800 species from the seas around Kagoshima, including a whale shark in the big Kuroshio tank.
• Reimeikan Museum Kagoshima
  The prefectural history museum on the site of Kagoshima (Tsurumaru) Castle's main compound, strong on the Satsuma clan and the Meiji Restoration era.
• Shoko Shuseikan Museum (Former Shuseikan) Kagoshima
  A museum on 800 years of the Shimazu family and the modernization drive of the Satsuma domain in the late Edo period. It occupies the former Shuseikan machine factory, a World Heritage component.
• Tanegashima Space Center (Space Science and Technology Museum) Kagoshima
  JAXA's main rocket launch site on Tanegashima island. Its free museum shows life-size models of rockets and of Japan's module on the International Space Station.
• Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium Okinawa
  Whale sharks and manta rays swim in one of the world's largest tanks.
• Okinawa Peace Memorial Park (Mabuni) Okinawa
  A seaside park at Mabuni in southern Okinawa, home to the prefectural Peace Memorial Museum on the Battle of Okinawa.

Sea, coast & islands · Mountains, lakes & falls · Gardens, parks & flowers · City sightseeing · Old towns & villages · Hot-spring towns · Shrines & temples · Castles & historic sites