Historic Villages of Shirakawa-go

The Shirakawa Historic Village, along with Ainokura and Suganuma villages in Toyama Prefecture, has gained a reputation as one of Japan's most celebrated sites and is recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is located in the village of Shirakawa in Gifu Prefecture and is situated in a mountainous region that experiences heavy snowfall. The area is renowned for its clusters of gassho-zukuri style farmhouses.

The gassho-zukuri style, also known as "prayer-hands construction", is characterised by steep thatched roofs resembling two hands in prayer. It is considered one of Japan's most important and rare architectural styles for farmhouses. The concentration of well-preserved examples in Shirakawa-go is what earned the site its recognition as a World Heritage Site.

This unique form of house construction is one of a kind in Japan, and roof space is not utilized in a multi-story manner anywhere else in the country, except for storage purposes. To this day, the traditional "yui" system of collective work is still in use to re-thatch the roofs of gassho-zukuri houses. The thatch replacement process occurs every 30 to 40 years and requires a significant amount of labor and resources. Preparation for re-thatching begins at least three years in advance, and the work is typically done on one side of the roof in two days with 200 to 300 workers daily.