Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto
The number of Wikipedia languages with an article is our measure of how widely known a site is. Counts of visitors and wishes will appear once enough people use the app.
How it came to be
Emperor Kanmu had moved the court from Heijō-kyō to Nagaoka-kyō in 784, but within a decade he chose another site, entering the new capital in 794 and naming it Heian-kyō. It was a planned grid city based on Chinese imperial capitals, about 4.5 km east to west and 5.2 km north to south. Kyoto formally remained the capital until the government moved to Tokyo in 1869.
The World Heritage property has 17 components in Kyoto and Uji and in Ōtsu in Shiga Prefecture: 13 Buddhist temples, three Shinto shrines and one castle. At Uji, Fujiwara no Yorimichi turned a villa bought by his father Michinaga into the temple Byōdō-in in 1052, and its Phoenix Hall was finished the next year. Kiyomizu-dera's main hall was rebuilt in 1633, after a fire in 1629, with a donation from Tokugawa Iemitsu.
Most of the buildings and gardens date from the 10th to the 17th century. The components include 38 buildings designated National Treasures, 160 Important Cultural Properties and eight gardens listed as Special Places of Scenic Beauty. UNESCO listed the group in 1994.
Travellers who came here
- 1878-10
She visited the Kyoto college, owned by a Japanese company that employed foreign teachers. Her letter of 1 November records three hours at Nishi Hongan-ji, where the priest Akamatsu showed her the temples and explained the Shin sect.
Data: Wikidata (CC0). Photos: Wikimedia Commons, under each photo’s license. Prototype; may contain errors. We measure usage anonymously to improve the app (PostHog, EU).