is a grouping of historic sites concentrated in and around the Japanese city of Kamakura, near Tokyo. The city gave its name to the Kamakura shogunate which governed the country during the Kamakura period (1185-1333). In 1992 the monuments were submitted jointly for inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List under criteria i, ii, iii, iv, and vi.
In January 2012 it was announced that the Japanese government would formally submit the Kamakura site, along with Mount Fuji, for consideration by the World Heritage Committee in 2013. ICOMOS, the advisory body for cultural World Heritage Sites, inspected the site in late 2012.[1] [2] The request was considered by the World Heritage Committee at its 37th session in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in September, 2013. ICOMOS recommended not inscribing the site on the List, stating that the historical aspects of the site had largely been supplanted by the modern city that grew up around it and thus the site lacked the integrity necessary to be considered.[3] The request for World Heritage status was duly withdrawn by Japan.[4]
Ten candidate areas were proposed with twenty-two component sites, spanning the cities of Kamakura, Yokohama, and Zushi:[5]
| Site | Comments | Image |
|---|---|---|
| Greatest of Kamakura's Rinzai temples; number one of Kamakura's Five Mountains | ||
| Rinzai temple in Nikaidō famous for its magnificent garden | ||
| Kōtoku-in's iconic Buddha statue | ||
| Ruins of a Buddhist temple near Gokuraku-ji | ||
| Ruins of a great Buddhist temple in Nikaidō | ||
| The area near Minamoto no Yoritomo's grave where the temple he was buried in used to stand | ||
| One of Kamakura's Seven Entrances | ||
| One of Kamakura's Seven Entrances | ||
| One of Kamakura's Seven Entrances | ||
| Shingon temple | ||
| Rinzai temple in Kita-Kamakura; number two of Kamakura's Five Mountains | ||
| 13th century Shingon temple in Ōgigayatsu | ||
| Shingon temple in an area of Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama that used to be part of Kamakura | ||