Chiran Samurai Residence District

photo by René Haas · CC BY-SA 4.0

photo by Casey Yee from Vancouver, BC, Canada · CC BY-SA 2.0

A single 530-yen ticket covers seven samurai gardens from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Along the 800 metres of Honbaba-dōri, stone walls and hedges clipped into large squared shapes follow a zigzag layout designed to slow down an attack: the legacy of the ‘outer castles’ system (外jō) through which the Satsuma domain spread its samurai across 113 settlements instead of concentrating them in a single city. Seven of the gardens, six in karesansui style and one with a pond, are designated a national Place of Scenic Beauty and can be visited on a single ticket.

The residences you can see today date from the time of the eighteenth lord of the domain, Shimazu Hisamune, and the seven gardens date from between the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century. The district was designated an Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings (重要伝統的建造物群保存地区) on 30 November 1981, over an area of 18.6 hectares.

ℹ️ Open 9:00–17:00 every day of the year; no weekly closing day is given on the official site. Single ticket for the seven gardens: adults ¥530, children/teens (elementary to junior high school) ¥320; discounts for groups of 30 or more.

🚉 Bukeyashik Iriguchi · 2 min walk

Sources: ja.wikipedia.org · chiran-bukeyashiki.com

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