Meiji Jingu Shrine

The shrine covers an area of 73 hectares (about 220,000 tsubo). It is divided into an inner garden and an outer garden.

The Meiji Jingu Museum displays objects related to the deities of the Meiji period court culture, and the Meiji Jingu International Shinto Cultural Institute promotes the international transmission of Shinto culture.

The shrine attracts tourists from Japan and abroad every New Year, and is ranked first in Japan in terms of the number of visitors to the shrine each year for Hatsumode (New Year’s visits to the shrine).

The deities of worship are Emperor Meiji and Empress Dowager Shoken, and the shrine was built in 1920 after the death of Emperor Meiji.
The 36 buildings of the shrine, including the main hall, inner hall of worship, and outer hall of worship, are designated as National Important Cultural Properties.

Artificial forest in the inner garden
Most of the original shrine site was an expanse of wilderness to create an artificial forest for the establishment of the shrine. The trees in the deep forest in the inner garden were donated from all over Japan. 120,000 trees of 365 species were donated from all over Japan when the shrine was first built, and the number of trees increased to 170,000 trees of 247 species by 1970. Instead, the remaining trees are becoming giant trees.

The outer garden is equipped with various sports facilities, including baseball fields, tennis courts, golf courses, and futsal courts. The world-famous Ginkgo Biloba trees are also located in the Gaien.

Jingu Gyoen
The Jingu Gyoen has been used as a garden for daimyo’s residences since the Edo period (1603-1867). The Empress Dowager, who loved the beauty of the area, often visited the garden, and the Emperor Meiji built a teahouse called Kiun-tei, built an arbor, planted irises in the pond, and created a beautiful garden with a circular walkway. It was the only garden in the inner garden where trees had grown since before the shrine was built.

Bikun-tei was destroyed by fire in an air raid at the end of the Pacific War, but was restored by a benefactor after the war.
Today, in addition to the Kiun-tei and the arbor, the garden includes an otsuridai, an iris field, and the Seisho well. The iris field is said to have been planted by Emperor Meiji for Empress Dowager Shoken, and is at its peak in June. The autumn leaves can be admired from late November to early December.

Shaden (Shrine Pavilion)
The main shrine pavilions, including the main hall and worship hall, were destroyed by fire in 1945 during an air raid during the Pacific War, but the Minami-shinmon, Higashi-shinmon, and Nishi-shinmon gates to the south of the worship hall and the surrounding buildings still exist as they were when the shrine was built. The rebuilt shrine was designed by Kakunan Kaku, a Japanese architect.

The rebuilt shrine pavilions were designed by Takashi Kakunan and completed in 1958. The original shrine pavilions consisted of a south gate, a worship hall, a central gate, and a main building on a north-south axis, but Kakunan’s plan eliminates the central gate and divides the worship hall into two buildings, an outer worship hall and an inner worship hall. In addition, the roof of the shrine pavilions was changed from cypress bark to copper shingles.

The area north of the outer worship hall, including the main hall, is called the inner sanctuary, and the area south of the inner sanctuary, surrounded by a corridor and a shrine gate, is called the outer sanctuary (gein), which is entirely enclosed by a tamagaki fence.

The inner sanctuary includes the main hall, the inner worship hall, and the shrine for prayer (one building in total), as well as the inner corridor, the treasury (located underground), the shrine treasury, the inner permeable wall, and the north gate (one building in total), the shrine and the corridor (one building in total), the old ritual warehouse, the north corridor, the outer permeable wall, and the north gate.

In the outer sanctuary to the south of the outer worship hall are the Minami-shinmon (south gate), Higashi-shinmon (east gate), Nishi-shinmon (west gate), and the outer sanctuary corridor (including the hall for direct meetings).

In addition, the south, east, and west hand-watering basins, the shukueisha and exorcism hall in front of the south shrine gate, the sacred bridge on the south approach, and the seifuda at the entrances of the south, north, and west approaches are designated as Important Cultural Properties.

Except for the treasury (reinforced concrete structure with one basement floor) and the Shinto bridge (concrete bridge), all of the properties designated as Important Cultural Properties are wooden with copper shingle roofs.

The Kakunan-designed Fukko Honden (main hall) is a sangen-sha-ryuzukuri structure that follows the style of the original building, but the design differs from that of the original, such as the enlarged sengi and katagami (hardwoods) on the roof.

Of the other main buildings, the inner sanctuary has a gabled gable roof with chidori-gabled gables and eaves gables. The outer hall of worship is irimoya-zukuri, the south gate is irimoya-zukuri with a three-storied roof, and the east and west gates are gabled, four-legged gates.