Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto (Kyoto, Uji and Otsu Cities)

For over a millennium — from its founding in 794 until the court moved to Tokyo — Kyoto was Japan's imperial capital, and it remains the country's cultural treasury. Seventeen monuments across Kyoto, Uji and Otsu carry the inscription, from the gold-leafed Kinkaku-ji to the rock garden of Ryoan-ji, tracing the evolution of wooden religious architecture and the garden art that reshaped landscape design worldwide. UNESCO granted World Heritage status in 1994.