Historic Villages of Shirakawa-go and Gokayama

Steep thatched roofs pitched like hands in prayer define the gassho-zukuri farmhouses of Shirakawa-go and Gokayama, deep in the mountains of central Japan. The design shed heavy snow and left lofts roomy enough for silkworm rearing, the livelihood that long sustained these once-isolated valleys. The villages of Ogimachi, Ainokura and Suganuma preserve the tradition intact, and UNESCO inscribed them in 1995 as a World Heritage portrait of mountain life adapted to hard terrain.