Okinawa Prefecture travel guide

Top 10 sights in Okinawa Prefecture

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1. 

   1© 663highland · CC BY 2.5

   Shuri Castle

   The palace of the Ryukyu kings for four hundred and fifty years, its red-lacquered main hall built in a manner that is neither Chinese nor Japanese but both. It burned in the battle of 1945, was rebuilt in 1992, and burned again in October 2019; the reconstruction is open to watch in progress.

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2. 

   2© 663highland · CC BY 2.5

   Gusuku Sites and Related Properties of the Kingdom of Ryukyu

   The World Heritage listing that covers nine sites in Okinawa — castles, sacred groves and royal tombs of the Ryukyu kingdom, which traded independently with China, Japan and Southeast Asia until Japan annexed it in 1879. The name is a summary of the island's own history.

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3. 

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   Shuri

   The old royal capital district of Naha, on the ridge around the castle. Its Kinjocho stone-paved lane, laid in the sixteenth century in Ryukyu limestone, and the tile-roofed houses along it are the best surviving fabric of the kingdom.

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4. 

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   Nakagusuku Castle

   A gusuku fortification whose curved limestone walls, built without mortar in the fifteenth century, are the finest surviving in Okinawa. From the ramparts you can see the Pacific on one side and the East China Sea on the other.

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5. 

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   Tamaudun

   The stone royal mausoleum of the second Sho dynasty, cut into rock beside the castle in 1501, with three chambers where the bones were cleaned and reinterred in urns. It survived the war better than the castle did.

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   Sefa-utaki

   The most important sacred site of the Ryukyuan religion, a forest of limestone outcrops where the high priestess conducted the state rites. A triangular cleft in the rock frames a view of Kudaka island, the island of the gods, which is the point of the whole arrangement.

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7. 

   7© 663highland · CC BY 2.5

   Okinawa Prefectural Museum & Art Museum

   The prefectural museum and art museum in one limestone-clad building, covering Okinawan natural history, the Ryukyu kingdom, the battle and the postwar American administration, along with contemporary Okinawan art.

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8. 

   8© 663highland · CC BY 2.5

   Shureimon

   The second gate of Shuri Castle, carrying a plaque that reads land of propriety — the phrase a Chinese envoy used for the Ryukyu kingdom. It survived as an image on the two-thousand-yen note and is the most recognisable structure in Okinawa.

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   Sonohyan-utaki

   A stone gate of 1519 in front of the sacred grove where the king prayed before leaving the castle, and a component of the World Heritage listing. It stands beside the Shureimon and is easy to walk past without noticing.

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10. 

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    Shikina-en

    The Ryukyu kings' detached villa and garden, laid out in 1799 for entertaining Chinese envoys, with a circuit path round a pond, a hexagonal Chinese pavilion and arched stone bridges. It was destroyed in 1945 and rebuilt over twenty years.

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1. 

   1© ja:user:SANDO · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Cornerstone of Peace

   A memorial at Itoman carrying the names of everyone who died in the battle of Okinawa — some two hundred and forty thousand people, listed without distinction of nationality, Japanese and American and Korean and Okinawan together. That decision is what makes it unusual among war memorials.

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2. 

   2© ChiefHira · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Naminoue Shrine

   The principal Shinto shrine of Okinawa, on a bluff above the only swimmable beach within walking distance of central Naha. It was destroyed in the battle and rebuilt in 1953, and Ryukyuan and Japanese practice are mixed in its rites.

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3. 

   3© Sturmgewehr88 · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Urasoe Castle

   A gusuku that was the capital of the Chuzan principality before Shuri, on a ridge with Naha and the sea beyond it. The royal tomb of Urasoe yodore lies below it, and the ridge was a battlefield in 1945.

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4. 

   4© 663highland · CC BY 2.5

   Himeyuri Peace Museum

   A museum at Itoman about the schoolgirls conscripted as nurses in the battle of Okinawa, of whom over a hundred died — many in the cave the museum stands beside, where some were killed by grenades after refusing to surrender. The survivors' testimony is the exhibition.

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5. 

   5© 663highland · CC BY 2.5

   Kokusai-dōri

   Kokusai-dōri is Naha's 1.6-kilometre main shopping street, the symbol of a postwar recovery once called the 'miracle mile'. Souvenir shops, Okinawa soba and the alleys of the Makishi market all hang off this one axis.

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6. 

   6© ChiefHira · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Gokoku-ji Temple

   A Shingon temple beside the Naminoue bluff, founded in 1367 and the oldest in Okinawa, though the buildings are postwar. Commodore Perry's interpreter used it as a base in 1853, and it is quiet in a way the shrine above it is not.

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7. 

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   Fukushūen

   A Chinese garden built in 1992 to mark the sister-city relationship with Fuzhou, in the Kume district where the Ming-era Chinese community lived. Pavilions, a waterfall and a carp pond reproduce a Fujian garden in the middle of Naha.

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   Tamagusuku Castle

   A gusuku at Nanjo said in the Ryukyuan creation myth to have been built by the goddess Amamikiyo. Only one arched gate cut from the living rock remains, but the site is the mythical starting point of the islands.

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9. 

   9© Sturmgewehr88 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Sashiki Castle

   A gusuku on a hill above the southern coast, the home castle of the family that founded the first Sho dynasty in 1406. It is unrestored and unvisited, which means the walls and the sea can be looked at in peace.

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10. 

    10© LordAmeth · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Sōgen-ji

    The site of a Rinzai temple that held the mortuary tablets of the Ryukyu kings, where each new king's succession was announced. Only the stone gate of 1527 survived the battle of 1945, and it stands alone in a small park.

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