Kobe travel guide

Top 10 sights in Kobe

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

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   1© 663highland · CC BY 2.5

   Kobe Mosque

   Japan's first mosque, opened in October 1935 in the Kitano foreigners' quarter with money gathered by the city's Islamic committee from 1928. The Czech architect Jan Josef Svagr built it in Indo-Islamic style; it was seized by the navy in 1943 and came through both the 1945 air raids and the 1995 earthquake.

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   2© 663highland · CC BY 2.5

   Kobe Port Tower

   A 108-metre observation tower of 1963 in the harbour, whose hyperboloid steel lattice — a shape formed entirely of straight tubes — is painted vermilion. It reopened in 2024 after renovation with a rooftop deck.

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   3© KishujiRapid · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Akashi Castle

   An Edo-period castle at Akashi west of Kobe, built in 1619 to guard the strait, of which two three-storey corner turrets survive as Important Cultural Properties. The Akashi meridian, on which Japanese standard time is set, runs through the city.

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   4© Tak1701d · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Hyōgo Prefectural Museum of Art

   A prefectural art museum in Nada-ku, opened in 2002 in an Ando Tadao building on the reclaimed waterfront, and part of the reconstruction after the 1995 earthquake. Its collection covers modern Japanese sculpture and Hyōgo artists.

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   Ikuta Shrine

   A shrine in Chūō-ku possibly among the oldest in Japan, whose founding legend has Empress Jingū enshrining Wakahirume here after her ship was saved on the return from Korea. Its grove was the site of fighting in the Genpei war.

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   6© 663highland · CC BY 2.5

   Kobe City Museum

   The city museum, opened in 1982 by merging Kobe's archaeology and Namban art museums, in a 1935 bank building. Its Namban collection — Japanese painting made under early European contact — is the finest anywhere.

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   7© Tomomarusan · CC BY 2.5

   Nankin-machi

   Kobe's Chinatown, south of Motomachi station, laid out around a crossroads with two ornamental gates and over a hundred restaurants and shops. A temple to Guan Yu stands in the middle and the Lunar New Year parade fills the streets.

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8. 

   8© 663highland · CC BY 2.5

   Hirota Shrine

   A shrine at Nishinomiya in Hyōgo which gave the city its name — Nishinomiya means the western shrine. It is dedicated to a manifestation of Amaterasu and its grounds hold a famous stand of azaleas.

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   9© 日:Jnn · CC BY 2.1 jp

   Nagata Shrine

   A shrine in Nagata-ku, Kobe, dedicated to Kotoshironushi, one of the three great shrines of the region. Its Oni-oi-shiki rite each February has masked demons drive out misfortune with torches and swords.

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10. 

    10© 663highland · CC BY 2.5

    Nishinomiya Shrine

    The head shrine of the Ebisu cult, with about 3,500 shrines under it, at Nishinomiya in Hyōgo. Its Toka Ebisu on 10 January starts with a footrace through the gates at dawn — the first three men to reach the hall are named lucky men for the year.

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Popular tickets & tours in Kobe

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Based on 2025 Wikipedia pageviews — popular places beyond the top 10.

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   the Grand Ring

   A timber ring two kilometres in circumference and twenty metres high designed by Sou Fujimoto as the central structure of Expo 2025 at Osaka, built with traditional Japanese joinery at unprecedented scale. It was recognised as the largest wooden structure in the world.

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   2© 663highland · CC BY 2.5

   Nunobiki Herb Garden

   A sixteen-hectare herb garden on the slope of Mount Rokkō above Kobe, reached by the Shin-Kobe ropeway from the centre, with about 200 kinds of herb and flower in terraced beds. The Nunobiki waterfall, praised in Heian poetry, is on the path below.

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   3© 663highland · CC BY 2.5

   Meriken Park

   A waterfront park in Kobe harbour holding the Port Tower and the Maritime Museum, opened in 1987. A section of quay wall buckled by the 1995 earthquake was left exactly as it was as a memorial.

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   4© ja:User:Nnn · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Kobe Animal Kingdom

   An animal and flower park on Port Island in Kobe, mostly under glass, where birds fly free among hanging flower displays. It was called the Kobe Flower and Bird Park until July 2014.

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   5© 663highland · CC BY 2.5

   Takenaka Carpentry Tools Museum

   Opened in 1984 by the Takenaka construction firm to keep Japan's hand tools from vanishing, the collection now runs past 30,500 items. Planes, saws and chisels are shown alongside the joinery they produced, with demonstrations by working carpenters.

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   6© 663highland · CC BY 2.5

   Kobe Maritime Museum

   A museum in Meriken Park on Japanese shipping and the port of Kobe, under a white space-frame roof suggesting sails and waves. Kobe was one of the ports opened to foreign trade in 1868 and became Japan's largest.

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   Minatogawa Shrine

   A shrine of 1872 in Chūō-ku on the site of the 1336 battle of Minatogawa, dedicated to Kusunoki Masashige, who died there fighting for the emperor against the Ashikaga. It is one of the fifteen Kenmu Restoration shrines.

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   8© KishujiRapid · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institution

   A memorial museum at HAT Kobe on the Great Hanshin earthquake of 17 January 1995, which killed about 6,400 people and destroyed much of this city. It opens with a film of the seventeen seconds of shaking and moves on to disaster reduction.

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   9© 663highland · CC BY 2.5

   Taisan-ji Temple

   A Tendai temple in Kobe founded in 716 by order of Empress Genshō, whose main hall of 1293 is a National Treasure — the oldest building in Hyōgo prefecture. It stands in a wooded valley away from the city.

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    Goshikizuka kofun

    A keyhole-shaped kofun of about 400 in Tarumi-ku, 194 metres long, and the only large mound in Japan restored to its original appearance — covered in about 2.2 million river stones as it would have been. The Akashi strait and the bridge are directly below it.

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