Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto: The 17 Component Sites

A World Heritage Site that is not a single building

The "Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto" consist of 17 temples, shrines, and a castle in Kyoto City, Uji City, and Ōtsu City.

The "Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto," made up of these 17 temples, shrines, and a castle, were inscribed in 1994.

Where are the 17 sites?

The component sites are 17 temples, shrines, and a castle spread across two prefectures and three cities: Kyoto City and Uji City in Kyoto Prefecture, and Ōtsu City in Shiga Prefecture. Of these, 14 are in Kyoto City.

Three are outside Kyoto City. Byōdō-in and Ujigami Shrine are in Uji City, and Enryaku-ji is in Sakamoto-honmachi, Ōtsu City, Shiga Prefecture. When people hear "Kyoto's World Heritage," they tend to think only of temples and shrines in the city, but the full set is complete only when you travel as far as Mount Hiei and Uji.

The 17 sites span three cities

What was recognized as a "treasure of the world"?

The Statement of Outstanding Universal Value, compiled in 2012, recognizes that Kyoto was Japan's capital and cultural center from its founding in 794 until the mid-19th century, and that the sites illustrate the development of wooden architecture, especially religious architecture, and of the Japanese garden, which influenced landscape gardening around the world. The site was inscribed under criteria (ii) and (iv).

The 17 sites include 198 buildings and 12 gardens, most of them built or created between the 10th and 17th centuries. All except Nijō Castle—16 sites—are religious sites; 16 are owned by religious corporations, and one (Nijō Castle) is owned by Kyoto City.

Because many of the buildings have been repaired with strict respect for their original form, decoration, and materials, it was also valued that you can see, down to the details, what they looked like when they were built. On the other hand, fire is considered the greatest threat. The buildings are equipped with automatic fire alarms and fire-extinguishing systems, and in some cases the owners have formed their own fire brigades that work with the fire department.

Isn't the Imperial Palace included? A common misconception, and how the city is protected

The list of 17 sites does not include the Kyoto Imperial Palace, Katsura Imperial Villa, or Shugakuin Imperial Villa. All of them are historic sites that represent Kyoto, yet surprisingly few people know that they are not component sites of the World Heritage Site "Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto." Kyoto City considers that there are cultural assets other than the component sites whose value rivals that of World Heritage, and it has been studying and considering adding them to the inscription.

World Heritage is protected not only as buildings but together with the surrounding landscape. A buffer zone is set around each of the 17 sites, and these are in turn surrounded by historic environment adjustment areas where development is regulated. Kyoto City in 2007 and Uji City in 2000 are said to have introduced new landscape policies that tightened building height restrictions.