Former Nara Prison Museum

photo by 663highland · CC BY 2.5

photo by 663highland · CC BY 2.5

Dating from 1908, on a Haviland radial plan: the only survivor of the five Meiji prisons.

Visitors walk inside the radial-plan building constructed in 1908 on the layout known as the ‘Haviland system’: of the five large prisons of the Meiji judicial modernisation, this one in Nara is the only one to have survived intact. Hoshino Resorts reopened it as a museum in 2026, after its closure as a penal institution.

The building was one of the five large prisons built by the Japanese state during the modernisation of the judicial system in the Meiji era. It opened in 1908 with the Haviland radial plan and has been designated an Important Cultural Property.

ℹ️ Open 9:00–17:00, last entry at 16:00. Tickets are booked through an external platform (Asoview); the price is not published on the museum's website.

🚉 Kintetsu Nara · 28 min walk

Sources: hoshinoresorts.com

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