Tomorrow, the 30th, is Zero Waste Day, Vacuum Cleaner Day, Women's Shogi Day, and also Cultural Properties Protection Law Day. Promulgated in 1950 (Showa 25), it aims "to preserve cultural properties, promote their utilization, contribute to the cultural elevation of the people, and contribute to the progress of world culture." Around Palaceside Building in central Tokyo stand many nationally, metropolitan, and ward designated or registered treasures—from the Former Konoe Division Headquarters (former National Museum of Modern Art Crafts Gallery), Edo Castle outer moat ruins, and former Edo Castle Shimizu and Tayasu gates to the Academy Hall (nationally registered tangible cultural property) and Taira no Masakado mound (metropolitan historic site).
According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, as of May 1 nationally designated items alone include 12,874 national treasures and important cultural properties, 2,979 historic sites/scenic places/natural monuments, 112 individuals and 26 groups of important intangible cultural properties, 213 important tangible folk cultural properties, and 281 important intangible folk cultural properties—plus national selection and registration, and prefectural and municipal designations, so cultural properties number enormously and each receives careful preservation.
By prefecture, Tokyo leads in national treasures and important cultural properties with 2,714, followed by Kyoto with 2,140 and Nara with 1,307. Despite the Great Kanto Earthquake and more than 100 air raids, Tokyo retains many treasures perhaps because it has far more museums and galleries housing cultural properties than other prefectures and because cultural figures gathered here. For nationally designated historic sites and natural monuments, Nara leads with 142, then Kyoto 133 and Fukuoka 112.
You may know the story that U.S. forces refrained from bombing ancient capitals such as Kyoto, Nara, and Kamakura to protect cultural heritage. A list by Harvard Art Museums curator Langdon Warner is said to have excluded Kyoto and Nara from bombing targets. The tale spread; Warner was thanked nationwide as a savior of cultural properties, and six monuments were erected after his death. At the plaza west of JR Kamakura Station stands a roughly 2-meter monument with Warner's relief and an inscription praising his achievement under the title "Culture Takes Precedence Over War"= photo =.
Later, however, doubts arose about this "legend." Research by former Osaka Shoin Women's University professor Morio Yoshida, author of "Why Japan's Ancient Capitals Escaped Air Raids" (1995, Asahi Bunko), suggests Kyoto avoided concentrated bombing because it was on the atomic bomb candidate list; Nara and Kamakura had fewer people and no munitions plants, so they ranked lower for bombing and the war ended sooner than expected. Yoshida closes by noting how deeply such "legends" penetrate media and public consciousness—and how hard it is to revise once-popular uplifting stories.