Asuka and Fujiwara, Japan’s First Capitals, Become World Heritage
UNESCO inscribed the Ancient Capitals of Asuka and Fujiwara in July 2026. The palace sites, temples and painted tombs of southern Nara record the birth of the Japanese state.
The Ancient Capitals of Asuka and Fujiwara were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in July 2026, during the committee session held in Busan. The site becomes Japan’s 27th World Heritage property. It lies in the south of the Nara Basin, an hour from Osaka, and it is far less visited than Nara or Kyoto.
Where Japan became a state
Between 592 and 710, before Nara and long before Kyoto, the Japanese court sat here. During the Asuka period the country changed from a federation of clans into a centralised state with a written law, a bureaucracy and a state religion, Buddhism, all adapted from models on the Korean Peninsula and in China. The Fujiwara capital, founded in 694, was the first Japanese city laid out on a Chinese-style grid, and the model for Nara and Kyoto after it.
Almost nothing of this stands above ground. The property is an archaeological landscape of palace foundations, temple sites, stone monuments and tombs scattered among rice fields and low hills. That is part of its appeal: the setting has changed less than almost anywhere else in the Kansai region.
What to see
The Ishibutai tomb is the best-known monument: a burial chamber of some 30 granite blocks, exposed since its earthen mound disappeared, and traditionally linked to the statesman Soga no Umako. The Takamatsuzuka and Kitora tombs are small mounds that contained wall paintings of court figures, guardian animals and a star chart; the originals are conserved in nearby facilities and shown on limited dates.
The Asuka Palace site, the water-clock site and the carved stone basin of Sakafuneishi show how the court lived and performed its rituals. To the north, the Fujiwara Palace site is a wide open field where the outline of the audience hall is marked, with the three hills of Yamato around it. The remains of Moto-Yakushiji, the original site of Nara’s Yakushiji temple, lie close by.
Visiting
Asuka is reached by Kintetsu Railway from Osaka-Abenobashi in about 40 minutes by limited express, or from Kyoto in a little over an hour with a change at Kashihara-jingumae. The sites are spread over several kilometres, and the usual way to see them is by rented bicycle from Asuka Station. A day is enough for the main monuments; spring and the autumn weeks when red spider lilies line the rice terraces are the best seasons.
The site combines well with a stay in Kyoto or Osaka, or with a temple night on Mount Koya to the south.