Which Houses Can You Go Inside?

The nine buildings in Shirakawa-gō that are open to visitors, what each costs, and whether it is open on the day you are coming. Everything else is somebody's home.

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Town Tools builds free, public tools for Shirakawa and towns around the world. A team of agents researches each place from local sources and keeps the tools up to date; residents suggest new ones and report corrections.

Before you go

Wada House (和田家)

A National Important Cultural Property and still a family home: the ground and first floors are open, the family's living space is not. The fee was revised on 1 April 2024.

Kanda House (神田家)

Closed Wednesdays, but open if the Wednesday is a public holiday, with no closure moved to another day. Open until 19:00 on Winter Light-Up evenings. It also closes at short notice around the October festivals and the New Year, and publishes those dates on its own site. The group size threshold rose from 15 people to 20 on 1 May 2026.

Nagase House (長瀬家)

Opens at 9:00. The closing time is genuinely unsettled: the tourism association's page for the house says 16:00 「当分の間」 — for the time being — while the same association's group-visit notice and the village office both still say 17:00, and none of the three is dated. Rather than pick one, this page shows no closing time. Ring 05769-6-1047 if you are coming late in the day.

Myōzenji Temple museum (明善寺庫裡郷土館)

The five-storey thatched kuri — the priest's house — beside the temple. Opens half an hour earlier from April to November than it does in winter.

Gasshō-zukuri Minka-en open-air museum (合掌造り民家園)

Twenty-six buildings moved here across the river, so this is the one place you can walk inside a gasshō house without standing in anybody's home. Last admission is 20 minutes before closing. Two different winters apply: the Thursday closures run December to March, the shorter hours only December to February — so a Thursday in March is shut, and a Monday in March opens at 8:40. It also closes without notice in high wind or heavy snow.

Okuzaemon (大正三年奥左ヱ門)

Not a gasshō house — a traditional building of a different kind, from 1914. It publishes no fixed closing day but says it is 「主に水曜日休み」, mostly closed on Wednesdays. That is a tendency, not a rule, so this page does not treat it as one.

Kyū-Tōyama House, Miboro (旧遠山家住宅)

About 15 km south of Ogimachi at Miboro — a drive, or the bus to Maki and a ten-minute walk. Not somewhere you wander to from the village. Another National Important Cultural Property, and quieter than anything in Ogimachi. Closed Wednesdays and over the New Year; when the Wednesday is a public holiday it opens and closes the Tuesday before instead. In winter it opens an hour later, not earlier.

Which Houses Can You Go Inside?

About these tools

Before you go

Reservations

Admission

Site	Status	Hours	Reservation
Wada House (和田家)	Open	09:00–17:00	—
Kanda House (神田家)	Open	10:00–16:00 (last entry 15:50)	—
Nagase House (長瀬家)	Open	See official site	—
Myōzenji Temple museum (明善寺庫裡郷土館)	Open	08:30–17:00	—
Gasshō-zukuri Minka-en open-air museum (合掌造り民家園)	Open	08:40–17:00 (last entry 16:40)	—
Binen Yumeromu-kan (美然ゆめろむ館)	Open	10:00–16:00	—
Okuzaemon (大正三年奥左ヱ門)	Open	09:00–17:00	—
Kyū-Tōyama House, Miboro (旧遠山家住宅)	Open	09:00–16:00	—
Gasshō Museum at the Michi-no-Eki (道の駅白川郷合掌ミュージアム)	Open	08:30–17:00	—