I’m interested in visiting a Japanese city with pleasant historical areas, but honestly can’t find any besides Kyoto and Kanazawa. It looks like pretty much every single city was bombed to hell by the USA, mostly with >50% of the cities completely destroyed. And then of course there are other cities that mostly completely sprang up after the 1940’s. It looks like Kyoto and Kanazawa are the two major cities that come up on the Internet that mostly avoided being destroyed.
I know there are many small towns that have historical areas, but does anyone know any other cities?
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Not exactly what you’re looking for, but before the pandemic I stayed in an Airbnb house located in Onomichi that was built in 1903.
Kawagoe in Saitama has a beautiful historical center with original buildings which wasn’t hit (hardly) at all during the war as far as I know. Isn’t as big as Kyoto or Nara obviously, but still nice!
Hagi in Yamaguchi-ken blew me away when I visited last year. So many well-preserved homes and temples and a surprisingly nice beach in the summer time.
Takayama. You can also visit nearby Shirakawago. See my recent trip report.
– [Autumn Leaves in Takayama ](https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/mg8ir9/autumn_weekend_in_takayama_gifu_prefecture/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
Of the major cities at the outbreak of WW2, only Sapporo, Hakodate, Kyoto and Kanazawa survived relatively intact. Well, parts of Kitakyushu (Moji) waterfront also survived the war.
Kurashiki, Matsumoto, Nara, Kawagoe, Matsue, or Nagano are fairly sizeable cities right now, however, before 1940’s they were middling at best.
One should note that many of the cities destroyed in WW2 already have replaced most of their historical architecture during Meiji and Taisho era (eg. Tokyo, Yokohama following 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, Kobe, Nagasaki, parts of today’s Kitakyushu, Shizuoka) and traditional housing has been prevalent mainly in the poorer enclaves (aside from samurai quarters in some of the cities).
Takayama is often referred to as “Hida takayama” if you hear that it’s the same place I think
Katori City (Sawara), Chiba Prefecture and Tochigi City, Tochigi Prefecture come to mind. Both have streets of preserved Edo Period architecture.
Note that many cities you see on the map are the result of mergers of towns and districts in the 1880s, 1950s, and early 2000s.
For example, Obi, a castle town often described as a “Little Kyoto” became part of Nichinan City, Miyazaki Prefecture in the 1950s. Katori City swallowed up Sawara Town in the early 2000s.
Himeji Castle luckily wasnt bombed during the war and its still intact. Its not 100% original but still the best castle in whole Japan imho.
Aizuwakamatsu! Really cool samurai town I hope to visit sometime on a future trip. Also Kawagoe, Shirakawago and Takayama.
This made me curious, so I found a [list of cities ordered by population in 1940](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%83%BD%E9%81%93%E5%BA%9C%E7%9C%8C%E5%BA%81%E6%89%80%E5%9C%A8%E5%9C%B0%E3%81%A8%E6%94%BF%E4%BB%A4%E6%8C%87%E5%AE%9A%E9%83%BD%E5%B8%82%E3%81%AE%E4%BA%BA%E5%8F%A3%E9%A0%86%E4%BD%8D) and a [map of air raids](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-n_G9gRge-cE/UcI33j5EuHI/AAAAAAAAKKc/s3xTR78Zpj0/s1600/0+japan+bombing+map+1945.jpg) and went from there.
The cities spared bombing in the top 50, in order of population: Kyoto, Sapporo, Hakodate, Kanazawa, Kokura (F’oka), Otaru (Hok.), Niigata, Muroran (Hok.), Kawaguchi (Sai.), and Kurume (F’oka).
I don’t think anyone’s ever been a historical tourist in Kawaguchi before, which reminds me the Americans weren’t the only ones with a penchant for wrecking shit in the mid-20th century, but there are at least a couple on there that make sense – Niigata, if I recall correctly, was on the same terrible shortlist as Kyoto at the end of the war before being spared at the last minute.
Anywhere in Hokkaido is going to have very little pre-Meiji architecture, but if you like Meiji stuff there are a few on there worth visiting.
Edit: looking at this map more, it seems like a decent rule of thumb for finding bomb-free top-*hundred* cities is to head for the [Tosando area](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8Dsand%C5%8D) – the north and the mountains. There were a few raids on places like Sendai and Aomori, but Morioka, Wakamatsu, Fukushima, Nagano, Matsumoto, etc stand out to me as having been spared, along with the wholly unexpected top-60 entrant of Kiryu, Gunma.
Nara, the old capital.
Shirakawa-go and Gokayama in Gifu prefecture is a must!
remindme! 2 hours
HELLO I would recommend Kagoshima I had to make a full on slide show about it and it seems amazing
Can’t believe no one mentioned Kurashiki yet! It’s one of my favourite old towns in Japan.
Like… all cities lmao it’s hard not to find a city in Japan that doesn’t have a historical area/site since Japan has such a long history on a relatively small, narrow island
First, I would ask what is the difference between city and small town in your opinion.
If we take Japan’s definition, it’s a population of at least 50K, so obviously if you are looking for 500K and + cities, we are not in the same category.
I would personally say Kashihara. Population of 124K, there is an historic neighborhood in the city, it is also right next to to Asuka (that is a village), that was the former capital of Japan before Nara, so there is some history museum in the area and you can visit some historic location. There is also some famous and really beautiful temples in the area. Bonus point is that there is almost no foreign tourist, so it can be much more calm than the bigger and better known cities.
One thing that I would keep in mind is that even if the city have not been heavily destroyed during the war, a lot of the old buildings have been destroyed to be replaced by modern skyscrapers, modern office building or modern houses. Just take the example of Kyoto, despite not having been bombed, is not entirely made of old building. Yes, here and there you will see a kyo-machiya or an old temple, but appart some of the most touristic neighborhoods, it’s not as if most of Kyoto was that much made of historical building.
And despite being bombed, some cities can still have an historic area too.
One more point is that, what kind of historic area are you looking for? Are you looking for things built in Edo period, or Meiji era or Taisho era ? If you go to Hokkaido, for sure you will never find the kind of historic neighborhoods that you can find in Kyoto or Kanazawa, as the main historic location date back only 150 years ago for things that have a heavy western influence, such as red brick warehouse and church in Hakodate. I am not saying that this is not interesting, but it’s different.
Here’s a list of 67 cities that were firebombed. [http://www.ditext.com/japan/napalm.html](http://www.ditext.com/japan/napalm.html)
Check out Kumamoto city, an old castle town that hasn’t been bombed!
Kumamoto has many historical locations, especially related to samurai culture, such as Kumamoto castle, Reigando (the cave where legendary Miyamoto Musashi spend his last years alive), old samurai residences, areas with traditional townscape, etc, etc.
Of course, it depends on what era of historical remains you are looking for but at least Kumamoto has a lot to offer if you like the Edo period.
I live in Kumamoto so let me know if you want more information!
Thanks to this thread my 3 week Japan trip is now 4 weeks LMAO
Me too suggest Himeji that is very close to Kyoto. Majority of city is modern but the castle is the only one not destroyed by bombs. Inside is obviously not 100% original but from the outside it is a beautiful view. There is also a nice area very close with gardens and nice small streets.