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

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 . 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: , , and . Items of particularly high significance receive higher classifications: , , and respectively. As of November 20, 2020 there are 1,034 Natural Monuments, 1859 Historic Sites, 425 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:
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.