Nikkō Tōshō-gū
Shinto shrines in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan
Nikkō Tōshō-gū (日光東照宮) is a Tōshō-gū Shinto shrine located in Nikkō, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan.
Together with Futarasan Shrine and Rinnō-ji, it forms the Shrines and Temples of Nikkō UNESCO World Heritage Site, with 42 structures of the shrine included in the nomination. Five of them are designated as National Treasures of Japan, and three more as Important Cultural Properties.
History
Tōshō-gū is dedicated to Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate. It was initially built in 1617, during the Edo period, while Ieyasu's son Hidetada was shōgun. It was enlarged during the time of the third shōgun, Iemitsu. Ieyasu is enshrined there, where his remains are also entombed. This shrine was built by Tokugawa retainer Tōdō Takatora.
During the Edo period, the Tokugawa shogunate carried out stately processions from Edo to the Nikkō Tōshō-gū along the Nikkō Kaidō. The shrine's annual spring and autumn festivals reenact these occasions, and are known as "processions of a thousand warriors".
“Nikkō Tōshō-gū” enters the record as shinto shrines in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Nikkō, Tōshō-gū and Shinto can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q696641. VIAF identifies the subject as 133746496. The Library of Congress control number is n84210544. Authority coordinates are 36.759, 139.599. 5 of 7 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1617.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nikkō Tōshō-gū” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.