About This Site
“Exploring Japanese Landmarks in Nishiki-e and Photographs" is a digital exhibition offered on the NDL Gallery.
We find landscape photographs and paintings from various materials held by the National Diet Library and provide them in the form of "landmarks" edited by location. We mainly use images from the Edo period to the early Showa period.
We will continue to add images of various locations from digitized materials, along with landmarks.
About the Landmarks and the Exhibition’s Contents
- "Landmarks" is the name given to places that are depicted in Meisho Zue or nishiki-e (color woodblock prints) of the Edo period (1603-1868) and places whose photographs appear in publications of the Meiji and Taisho periods (1868-1912). For this reason, there tends to be a large number of Landmarks places in urban areas and along highways, where publications flourished.
- The contents of the digital exhibitions "The Meiji and Taisho Eras in Photographs" (released in 2007) and "The Landmarks of Edo in Color Woodblock Prints" (released in 2008) are also used. The content of "The Landmarks of Edo in Color Woodblock Prints" exhibition is used for Tokyo's landmarks places and explanatory text.
About the map
- The map data is based on Geographical Survey Institute tiles from the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan.
- Each landmark is represented by a pin on the map. Some of the places are represented by icons, mainly those with more images or written explanations.
- The coordinates on the map are approximate and do not represent the points where the images were drawn or photographed.
Reproduction of the contents
All the images on the digital exhibition "Exploring Japanese Landmarks in Nishiki-e and Photographs" can be used for any purpose, including commercial purposes, without asking permission. We, however, kindly ask you cite our website when reproducing them.
For more information, please refer to Terms of Use of the National Diet Library's website.
(Example of source citation)
Source: Exploring Japanese Landmarks in Nishiki-e and Photographs
Contact information
Service Planning Division
Reader Services and Collections Department
Email: webcont 
The NDL Image Bank is a public-domain digital gallery of the National Diet Library, the national library in Japan. Our website has thousands of out-of-copyright Japanese artworks and images from our library’s extensive collection!
The NDL Gallery is online content that you can enjoy using the digitized materials of the National Diet Library. It also provides information on exhibitions in the National Diet Library.
The NDL Digital Exhibitions features the NDL’s unique collections with explanations covering various themes such as nishiki-e, landscape photographs and historical materials. Discover your favorites!