Kehi Jingu

Published: Aug 11, 2026

Updated: Aug 11, 2026

Kehi Jingugreat toriiTsurugaImportant Cultural PropertyBasho

Representative image — not a photograph of this location.

The great torii at Kehi Jingu is 10.9 metres high, built of wood, and is counted with Kasuga Taisha in Nara and Itsukushima in Hiroshima as one of the three great wooden torii of Japan. It is a nationally designated Important Cultural Property and it stands at the end of an ordinary shopping street in Tsuruga, which is a slightly startling way to encounter it.

The shrine dates its foundation to 702 and was the first-ranked shrine of Echizen province. Tsuruga people call it Kei-san. The other thing to know is that Matsuo Basho came here in 1689 on the journey that became Oku no Hosomichi and wrote about the moonlight on the sand that a priest had spread in the grounds — the sand-carrying rite is still performed. The grounds are free and open, fifteen minutes from the station, and the torii is worth the walk on its own.

Essential Information

Opening Hours

Grounds open during daylight hours

Closed: Open year-round

Entrance Fee

Free

Best Season

Year-round

Visit Duration

30–45 minutes

Getting There

Access Information

11-68 Akebono-cho, Tsuruga. About 15 minutes on foot from JR Tsuruga Station, or by the Gurutto Tsuruga loop bus. Free to enter, with no admission charge. The great torii, 10.9 m high, is a nationally designated Important Cultural Property.

Insider Guide

Premium

**Approach from the street.** The torii stands where a normal shopping street ends, which is how the scale registers. Coming at it from the shrine side loses that entirely. **Read the Basho connection.** He came through in 1689 and wrote about the moonlight on the sand here. The sand-carrying rite that prompted it is still performed, and there is a monument in the grounds. **It is free and always open.** Unusual for a shrine of this rank, and it makes Kehi an easy stop between the station and the waterfront museums. **Combine with the waterfront.** The Port of Humanity museum and the red brick warehouses are about ten minutes away by bus, so shrine and quay make a coherent half-day in Tsuruga. **Tsuruga is now on the Shinkansen.** The Hokuriku Shinkansen extension reaches here, which has made a town that used to be a change of trains into a place worth stopping in.

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