To protect Japan's cultural heritage, the country's government selects through the Agency for Cultural Affairs important items and designates them as Cultural Properties under the Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties. Designated items are classified in a number of categories, one of which is Monuments (記念物). This category includes historic locations such as shell mounds, ancient tombs, sites of palaces, sites of forts or castles, monumental dwelling houses and other sites of high historical or scientific value; gardens, bridges, gorges, mountains, and other places of great scenic beauty; and natural features such as animals, plants, and geological or mineral formations of high scientific value. The government further designates "significant" monuments classifying them in three categories: Historic Sites (史跡), Places of Scenic Beauty (名勝), and Natural Monuments (天然記念物). Items of particularly high significance receive higher classifications: Special Historic Sites (特別史跡), Special Places of Scenic Beauty (特別名勝), and Special Natural Monuments (特別天然記念物) respectively. As of October 24, 2023 there are 1,040 Natural Monuments, 1895 Historic Sites, 429 Places of Scenic Beauty, 75 Special Natural Monuments, 36 Special Places of Scenic Beauty and 63 Special Historic Sites. Since a single item can fall under more than one of these categories, the total number of sites is less than the sum of designations.

Criteria

The Agency for Cultural Affairs designates monuments based on a number of criteria. A monument can be designated based on more than one of these criteria:

Places of Scenic Beauty and Special Places of Scenic Beauty

Historic Sites and Special Historic Sites

Natural Monuments and Special Natural Monuments

Usage

The table's columns (except for Remarks and Photo) are sortable pressing the arrows symbols. The following gives an overview of what is included in the table and how the sorting works.

Special Places of Scenic Beauty, Special Historic Sites, Special Natural Monuments