Hachiman-bori Canal

photo by Takashi Hososhima from Tokyo, Japan · CC BY-SA 2.0

photo by Jasonstirk · CC BY-SA 4.0

In 1972 the municipality wanted to fill it in to make car parks: the merchants saved it.

Toyotomi Hidetsugu, Hideyoshi's nephew, had this 4.75 km canal dug in 1585 to link the new castle town of Hachiman to Lake Biwa through Lake Nishi. By the '70s the canal had been reduced to an open sewer, and in 1972 the municipality planned to fill it in to make car parks; the local Chamber of Commerce replied that ‘regret begins the instant it is filled in’, and between 1976 and 1980 a civic movement instead secured a complete dredging and restoration. In 1992 the area became an Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings (13.1 hectares) and in 2006 it was the first in Japan to receive the status of Important Cultural Landscape.

Commercial canal of the Azuchi-Momoyama period in Omihachiman, now the heart of a neighbourhood of preserved warehouses and merchant houses.

ℹ️ Free access; you can walk along the banks in about 30–40 minutes. Paid boat trips (open fune) run in the tourist season.

🚉 近江八幡駅バスのりば · 28 min walk

Sources: ja.wikipedia.org

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