Shirakawa-go

Japanese: 白川郷 (Shirakawa gou)

Shirakawa-gô is a village famous as a site of traditional rural farming-town architecture and culture. It has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, along with the nearby village of Gokayama.

The village only first became a popular tourist site in the late 1950s or early 1960s; prior to that, it was considered a perfectly typical mountain village, and was not known as distinctive. With the construction of a nearby dam in the late 1950s to early 1960s, however, the Shirakawa onsen and nearby Shiramizu waterfall began to attract tourism. The population of the village began to decline dramatically around that same time, however; efforts were made to protect the village from disappearing, and Shirakawa was eventually named a World Heritage Site, securing its position as a notable tourist site.

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References

Gallery labels, National Museum of Japanese History.[1]