Kobe Kitano Ijinkan Town

Kitano-machi is located on a hilltop at the top of Toa Road, overlooking the harbor.
The area is famous for its ijinkan (foreign residences), and many boutiques and restaurants operate out of them.

Kitano Town, with its glamorous atmosphere, has a long history, beginning with the construction of Kitano Shrine by Taira no Kiyomori, who modeled it after the Kitano Tenmangu Shrine in Kyoto.

Ijinkan-gai was established in 1867 with the opening of the Port of Kobe as a residential area for foreigners. There used to be nearly 1,000 ijinkan buildings in the city, but today only 30 or so remain in the surrounding Kitano-machi area. Recently, however, more buildings have been opened to the public, and visitors can now tour more than 20 ijinkans.

In the Kitanocho and Yamamoto-dori neighborhoods, many Western-style residences (ijinkans) built between the 1887-1920s and the Taisho period remain, and they are harmoniously integrated with the Japanese-style residences. Based on the Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties and the Kobe City Urban Landscape Ordinance, the City of Kobe has designated the area where this concentration of traditional buildings remains as a Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings.

The preservation area extends approximately 750 meters from east to west and 400 meters from north to south, and was designated in 1980 as the “Kobe City Kitanocho Yamamoto-dori Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings,” which is also designated as an Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings in Japan. In this district, 34 Western-style buildings and 7 Japanese-style buildings have been designated as traditional buildings, and preservation activities are underway.

As historical background, the Edo shogunate concluded the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Japan and the United States in 1858 and the Five-Party Treaty of Ansei, which led to the opening of five ports: Hakodate (Hakodate City), Niigata (Niigata City), Kanagawa (Yokohama City), Hyogo (Kobe City) and Nagasaki (Nagasaki City).

These treaties mandated the establishment of a foreign settlement, and in Hyogo, the coastal area of the nearby village of Kobe was designated as a settlement.

However, the development of this settlement did not proceed smoothly, and foreign residences were constructed in the surrounding areas. Kitano-cho Yamamoto-dori was located to the north of the foreign settlement and extended to the foot of Mt.

Although the area was located some distance from the center of Kobe, it was not subject to the prewar air raids on Kobe because of its location as a foreign settlement and retains a valuable and elegant townscape. This district, along with other areas such as Jamesyama in Tarumi Ward, is a special place that conveys the flavor of Kobe as it once was.