Miyajima Island / Itsukushima was added to Your Favorites!
Setonaikai NP, Hiroshima
Claim this place to tell your story your way.
On May 20, 2026, fire destroyed Reikado Hall on Mount Misen, home to a flame traditionally said to have burned for 1,200 years. Daishoin reports the flame was saved; it also helped kindle Hiroshima’s Peace Flame.
Miyajima’s great torii isn’t buried in the seabed: it rests there under its own roughly 60-ton weight. Pine piles firm the ground below, while about 4 tons of stones hidden inside its top beam help steady it.
Around 1906, confectioner Takatsu Tsunesuke created the first maple-shaped baked bun after an innkeeper at Iwaso wanted a distinctive gift for guests. The local treat later became famous nationwide.
Miyajima’s oysters grow in waters nourished by nutrients from the island’s primeval forest and the Ota River. A Hiroshima-developed oyster, Kaki Komachi, is raised nearby and can be shipped year-round with good meat.
Anago-meshi is now known as a Miyajima specialty, but its origin was across the water: in 1901, it was first sold as a railway lunchbox near Miyajimaguchi Station, the mainland gateway to the island.
In 1164, Taira no Kiyomori and his clan presented Itsukushima Shrine with 33 individually decorated Buddhist scrolls. Known as the Heike nōkyō, the national treasure is famed for its lavish gold, silver and color.
At the annual Otogui rite, priests float ritual rice dumplings by Ubuzaki Shrine for wild crows to carry away. Local tradition says a pair of crows guided the island’s goddess to her shrine.
Itsukushima Shrine’s Kangen-sai sails on the high tide and near-full moon of lunar 6/17. The musical boat is towed by crews from Eba and Aga, whose villages began helping after rescuing it in a 1701 storm.
In 1555, Miyajima became a battlefield: 3,500 troops under Mori Motonari landed in a storm before dawn and attacked the camp of Sue Harukata’s 20,000 soldiers. The surprise assault ended with Harukata’s death.
In the late 18th century, monk Seishin modeled Miyajima’s wooden rice paddle on the biwa lute held by Benzaiten and taught islanders to make it for income. He also dug wells and improved roads for the community.
The Miyajima dragonfly lives nowhere else in Japan. This tiny, critically endangered subspecies depends on brackish coastal wetlands, making the island’s marshes an unusually important habitat.
Misen’s old-growth forest includes stands of Japanese hemlock (tsuga) above 400 meters. They cover only about 4.5% of Miyajima, and such forests are exceptionally scarce on other islands in the Seto Inland Sea.
Miyajima’s Senjokaku, or “Hall of a Thousand Mats,” is so vast it could hold 857 tatami mats. Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered it built as a sutra hall, but it was left unfinished after his death.
On December 31, Miyajima residents carry torches of many sizes along the shore, including huge ones borne by 20–30 people. Afterward, families take home extinguished small torches as charms against fire.
Miyajima’s deer aren’t a recent visitor attraction: the poet Saigyō wrote that the island had many deer about 820 years ago. Deer also appear in Edo-period pictures and maps of the island.
Miyajima’s Omoto Shrine has a distinctive wood-shingle roof built in six layers and three tiers. The Miyajima Tourist Association describes this roofing method as unique in Japan.
