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National Museum of Japanese History

Rekihakunational museumSakuraJapanese historyreconstructions

Chiba · Sakura

35.7243°N, 140.2195°E

This is the national museum for the history of Japan, and it is not in Tokyo — it is on the grounds of the old Sakura castle, forty minutes out on the Keisei line, which is why almost no foreign visitor ends up in it. The scale is a surprise: six permanent galleries running from prehistory to the post-war period across a very large building, built around full-size reconstructions rather than cases of objects.

What it does better than anywhere else is ordinary life. There is a reconstructed medieval street, a section of Edo-period Nihonbashi, a mid-twentieth-century apartment interior, and a gallery on folk belief. Rekihaku, as everyone calls it, is a research institute as much as a display, and the labelling assumes you are interested rather than in a hurry. There is also a separate botanical garden of plants used in daily life, a hundred yen, up the road.

Essential Information

Opening Hours

9:30 AM – 5:00 PM (March–September) | 9:30 AM – 4:30 PM (October–February) | Last entry 30 minutes before closing

Closed: Closed Mondays, or the following weekday when the Monday is a holiday | 27 December – 4 January

Entrance Fee

¥900 general | ¥500 university students | Free for high school age and under | Botanical garden ¥100

Best Season

Year-round | Indoor museum

Visit Duration

3–4 hours

Getting There

Access Information

117 Jonai-cho, Sakura, in Sakura Castle Park. About 15 minutes on foot from Keisei-Sakura Station or by bus from JR Sakura Station. Open 9:30 AM – 5:00 PM from March to September and 9:30 AM – 4:30 PM from October to February, with last entry 30 minutes before closing. Closed Mondays, or the following weekday when the Monday is a holiday, and 27 December – 4 January. Admission ¥900 general and ¥500 university students; free for high school age and under. The Kurashi no Shokubutsuen botanical garden is ¥100, free for high school age and under.

Insider Guide

Premium

**Allow three hours minimum.** Six permanent galleries covering the whole of Japanese history at full scale. Two hours gets you halfway and leaves you rushing the modern period, which is the most unusual part. **The reconstructions are the point.** A medieval street, a slice of Edo Nihonbashi, a post-war apartment. This is a museum built around walking into things rather than looking at them in cases. **Free for anyone under eighteen.** Unusual for a national museum of this scale, and worth knowing for families. **Add the plant garden for ¥100.** Separate from the main building, on the old castle grounds, and free on several designated days a year. **It is in a castle park.** Sakura Castle Park surrounds the museum, and the samurai houses and the bamboo lane at Hiyodorizaka are a short walk away, which makes a full day out of a town most people pass through on the way to Narita.

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