----------------------------------- sanji Sat Feb 09, 2008 4:23 am National Treasures of Japan ----------------------------------- Japanese enjoy rating things, and especially their natural sceneries and historical monuments. The most appreciated spots are probably those registered on the This thread is about something different : National Treasures of Japan (国宝, kokuhō). The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology designates the most famous of the nation's cultural properties as National Treasures. Those are of three types : Structures : 213 buildings such as castles, temples, shrines Examples of structures : Himeji castleItsukushima ShrineNikko ToshoguTodai-ji temple http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/59/Himejicastle17.jpg/120px-Himejicastle17.jpghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/51/Itsukushima_floating_shrine.jpg/120px-Itsukushima_floating_shrine.jpghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/d2/Nikko_Toshogu_Gate.jpg/120px-Nikko_Toshogu_Gate.jpghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1c/Toudaiji_daibutsuden_1.jpg/120px-Toudaiji_daibutsuden_1.jpg Arts and Crafts : 860 paintings, scrolls, sutras, works of calligraphy, statues, pottery, lacquer ware, swords, textiles, archeological and historical artifacts Living National Treasure (人間国宝, Ningen Kokuhō) : masters of crafts such as woodblock printing (ukiyo-e), papermaking, swordsmithing and pottery, or masters of performance traditions such as bunraku, kabuki, and various matsuri (festival) performance traditions - a little more than 100 persons have been granted this honor since 1950 Most of the structures registered as National Treasures are located in Nara-ken (64), Kyoto-fu (48 ) and Shiga-ken (22). A large fractions of the art and craft pieces are nowadays stored in museums, which explains why they are found mostly in Tokyo (233), Kyoto (204) and Nara (143). There is another list for buildings and are works that did not make it to the first list: thousands of art works and buildings that are considered of lesser importance are enlisted as Important Cultural Properties (重要文化財, jūyō bunka zai). written with the help of some wikipedia articles.