Gokayama
五箇山36°26′ N 136°56′ EOld townUNESCO
Gokayama suits travellers who want steep-roofed gassho villages that people still live in, and its trade-off is a bus journey into the mountains and villages that ask visitors to stay away after dusk.
Photo SHori · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0 and others, credited in the gallery
Visiting with care · Open to visitors
Coaches need a parking reservation for light-up evenings.
- Smoke only in designated areas.
- Keep out of private property, fields and the space under the eaves.
- Leave plants alone, and step aside for residents' cars.
- Avoid visiting early in the morning or after dusk.
- Ainokura and Suganuma are working villages where families live in the gassho houses, so photograph from the lanes and keep your voice down.
Related places
Gokayama is a cluster of 40 small hamlets in five valleys along a river that runs 115 km from the Hida highlands to the Sea of Japan, and winter brings 2 to 3 m of snow. Two of them, Ainokura and Suganuma, joined Shirakawa-go's Ogimachi on UNESCO's World Heritage list in 1995 for their gassho-zukuri farmhouses.
People still live in both villages, and the tourism office posts rules that come down to staying in the lanes and keeping clear of homes and fields. At Suganuma the Gokayama Folk Museum stays open at ¥300 for adults. Ainokura lights its houses for two evenings at a time, three times a year, and the winter dates are 20 and 21 February 2027.
Gokayama is also home to Kokiriko, one of Japan's oldest folk songs, performed on set dates through the year. The World Heritage Bus serves the villages, and the tourism office's access page covers routes from Kanazawa.
Worth knowing
- Ainokura's ordinary evenings of window light, without the light-up, fall on 13 and 27 January 2027, 17:00–20:00.
Quick answers about Gokayamaよくある質問
Can you visit Gokayama?
Open to visitors. Smoke only in designated areas. Keep out of private property, fields and the space under the eaves. Leave plants alone, and step aside for residents' cars. Avoid visiting early in the morning or after dusk.
What are the opening hours of Gokayama?
Gokayama is open the villages are lived in; the tourism office asks visitors to avoid early mornings and the hours after dusk except on light-up evenings.
How should you behave at Gokayama?
At Gokayama: Ainokura and Suganuma are working villages where families live in the gassho houses, so photograph from the lanes and keep your voice down.