Traditional Areas

Because Kyoto was spared the bombings of World War II, the preservation of the traditional areas here is especially important.  The wooden dwellings that remain in Kyoto are nearly all that is left of prewar urban Japan.

The movement to preserve historically and culturally important areas in the heart of the city came from citizens themselves, resulting tin the enactment of the Kyoto Urban Landscape Ordinance of 1972.

From the start, the urban preservation placed emphasis on the preservation of entire quarters of the city.

Densely populated for centuries, a complicated and closely-knit social fabric developed in which every individual in a neighborhood is responsible for the others for his or her actions.