Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Country

Japan

Also Known As Japanese
Asia

Japan's religious life runs on a long standing coexistence of Shinto, an indigenous system of kami worship tied to nature and ancestry, and Buddhism, imported from the Asian mainland in the sixth century and elaborated into distinct schools including Zen, Pure Land and Nichiren traditions. Most households move between the two without treating them as exclusive, marking rites of passage in Shinto terms and funerals in Buddhist ones. Japan also developed influential esoteric strands including Shingon and Tendai Buddhism, brought from China in the ninth century, and later gave rise to Zen aesthetics that shaped calligraphy, gardens and the tea ceremony. Classical Japanese religious and literary texts, including court diaries and Buddhist commentary, were composed in a written register distinct from the spoken language of the day, tracked separately in the atlas under its own language entries.

Facts
Law and State
Establishment Status
Disestablished 3
Religion was constitutionally separated from the state in 1947, ending State Shinto.
State Funding Mechanism
Japan has no state funding mechanism for religion. Article 89 of the 1947 Constitution bars public money or property from being expended or appropriated for the use, benefit or maintenance of any religious institution or association, a deliberate break from prewar State Shinto's official patronage of shrines, reinforced by Article 20's separation of religion and state. The prohibition remains a live political fault line: proponents of constitutional revision have argued for carving out public funding of Shinto ritual, without success to date. 4
Registration or Recognition Regime
The Religious Corporations Law of 1951 lets a religious group incorporate for legal and tax purposes by applying to its prefectural governor, or to the national Agency for Cultural Affairs when its facilities span more than one prefecture. The law went forty four years without amendment until Aum Shinrikyo's 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway prompted a 1996 revision requiring far greater financial disclosure from religious corporations and expanding the authorities' power to inspect them; Aum itself lost its status as a religious corporation the same year under a dissolution order the Tokyo High Court upheld. 5
Ban or Official Watchlist
Japan does not ban religious movements outright but has moved directly against two by name. On 13 March 2025 the Tokyo District Court ordered the dissolution, as a legal religious corporation, of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, the renamed Unification Church, after the government petitioned under the Religious Corporations Act following the 2022 assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which was tied to the group's fundraising practices; the order strips the group's tax and property privileges without banning its members from practicing. 6
Ban or Official Watchlist
Separately, Aum Shinrikyo, the group behind the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack, and its successor Aleph have been under continuous state surveillance since the 1999 Act on the Prevention of Recurrence of Indiscriminate Mass Murder, sometimes called the anti-Aum Act, which lets the Public Security Intelligence Agency monitor a group's officials and members and empowers the confiscation of its property to compensate victims. The restriction has been renewed repeatedly in three-year cycles, most recently extended again, keeping the successor movement under formal watch three decades after the attack. 7
Concordat BasisSourced to the subject's own account
Japan holds no concordat with the Holy See. Full diplomatic relations were established in 1942, during the Second World War, under Emperor Showa, making Japan the first Asian state to hold full relations with the Holy See; the decision was made partly in hope that the Vatican could help open channels to the Allied powers. The relationship has been maintained through an apostolic nunciature in Tokyo and a Japanese embassy to the Holy See ever since, without a bilateral treaty of any kind. 8
Government
Capital
Tokyo 2
Government Type
parliamentary constitutional monarchy 2
Sovereignty Status
Sovereign UN member state 2
Established Year
1947 2
3 May 1947 (current constitution adopted as amendment to Meiji Constitution); notable earlier dates: 11 February 660 B.C. (mythological date of Emperor JIMMU founding the nation); 29 November 1890 (Meiji Constitution provides for constitutional monarchy)
Status
Legal Status
Religion constitutionally separated from the state since 1947, ending State Shinto; new religious movements are legally free to organize, subject to civil oversight tightened after the 1995 Aum Shinrikyo subway attack. 3
Demographics
Religious Composition
By strict self-identification a majority religiously unaffiliated, though most participate in both Shinto and Buddhist rites without exclusive identification (Pew Research Center, Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020). 1
Geography
Latitude
36.2 degrees north 2
Approximate reference point, rounded to one decimal place; a country's extent has no single center, so this coordinate is conventional, not a survey measurement.
Longitude
138.3 degrees east 2
Approximate reference point, rounded to one decimal place; a country's extent has no single center, so this coordinate is conventional, not a survey measurement.
Government type (class)
Parliamentary monarchy 2
Location
Location of Japan Afghanistan Albania Algeria Angola Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cabo Verde Cambodia Cameroon Canada Chile China Colombia Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Democratic Republic of the Congo Denmark Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia Federated States of Micronesia Fiji Finland France French Polynesia Gabon Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Guam Guatemala Haiti Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Ivory Coast Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kuwait Laos Latvia Lebanon Libya Lithuania Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Mali Malta Mauritius Mexico Moldova Mongolia Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nigeria North Macedonia Norway Oman Pakistan Palestine Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands South Africa South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Sweden Switzerland Syria Taiwan Tanzania Thailand Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City Venezuela Vietnam Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe
Learn More
Religion and History in Japan

Japanese religious life is often described as syncretic rather than exclusive: most people participate in both Shinto rites, such as New Year shrine visits and life-cycle blessings, and Buddhist rites, especially funerals and ancestor memorials, without treating these as competing exclusive identities, which is why survey figures vary enormously depending on whether they measure formal affiliation or ritual participation.

Pew Research's Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020 places a large majority of Japan's population in the religiously unaffiliated category by strict self-identification, even though most participate in Shinto and Buddhist observances. Shinto, Japan's indigenous tradition centered on kami, spirits associated with natural features, ancestors and local shrines, has no single founder or scripture and was formally separated from the state after 1945, having been mobilized as State Shinto to underpin nationalist ideology and emperor worship from the Meiji era of 1868 through the Second World War.

Buddhism arrived from Korea and China in the sixth century CE and developed distinct schools, including Zen, Pure Land and the esoteric Shingon school founded by Kukai in the ninth century. Christianity, introduced by Jesuit missionaries in 1549, was violently suppressed under the Tokugawa shogunate from the 1620s until religious freedom was restored in the Meiji era.

State Shinto and Postwar Religious Freedom

Japan's 1947 constitution, drafted under Allied occupation, separates religion from the state and disestablished Shinto after its use as State Shinto had bound emperor worship, nationalist ideology and shrine ritual together in the decades before 1945; the emperor's January 1946 declaration of humanity formally renounced the notion of divine imperial descent central to that ideology.

Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which enshrines Japan's war dead including convicted Class A war criminals from the Second World War, remains a recurring diplomatic flashpoint whenever sitting officials visit in an official capacity, since China and South Korea view such visits as endorsing wartime militarism. New religious movements proliferated in the postwar decades under the constitution's guarantee of religious freedom, most prominently Soka Gakkai, a lay Buddhist movement historically linked to the Komeito political party, and less happily Aum Shinrikyo, whose 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway killed thirteen people and triggered a national reassessment of new religious movements. A 2022 assassination linked to grievances against the Unification Church prompted fresh government scrutiny of that movement's fundraising practices and its ties to Japanese politicians.

Japan
Filter Results27 entries

Buddhism Reaches Japan

Japan

Construction Begins on the Oyasato-yakata

Japan

Emperor Akihito Performs the First Daijosai Since State Shinto's Disestablishment

Japan

Emperor Naruhito Completes the Sokui no Rei and Daijosai Enthronement Rites

Japan

Francis Xavier's Mission to Japan

Japan

GHQ's Shinto Directive Disestablishes State Shinto

Japan

Imperial Japan Suppresses Tenrikyo Again

Japan

Ise Grand Shrine Begins Its Sixty Third Shikinen Sengu Rebuilding Cycle

Japan

Japan Enacts the Religious Corporations Law

Japan

Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs Counts Tenrikyo's Following in the Reiwa 7 Religious Yearbook

Japan

Japan's Home Ministry Orders the Shrine Merger Policy

Japan

Meiji Japan Surveils Tenrikyo

Japan

Mount Fuji Joins UNESCO's World Heritage List

Japan

Nakayama Miki Founds Tenrikyo

Japan

Nakayama Miki Teaches the Service for the First Time

Japan

Oyasama Identifies the Jiba, Tenrikyo's Sacred Center

Japan

Tenrikyo Observes Oyasama's 130th Anniversary Service at Church Headquarters

Japan

Tenrikyo Sheds State Shinto Doctrine After The War

Japan

Tenrikyo Wins Independence As Sect Shinto

Japan

Tenrikyo's Disaster Relief Corps Responds to the Great East Japan Earthquake

Japan

The Association Of Shinto Shrines Organizes After Disestablishment

Japan

The Association of Shinto Shrines Wins Reinstatement of National Foundation Day

Japan

The Kakure Kirishitan Re-Emergence

Japan

The Meiji Constitution Enshrines State Shinto as Civic Duty

Japan

The Meiji Government Establishes State Shinto

Japan

The Meiji Restoration's Haibutsu Kishaku Suppresses Buddhism In Japan

Japan

The Tokugawa Suppression of Christianity in Japan

Japan
Connections

Ancient and Historical Regions

East Asia, Regions
Source United Nations Statistics Division: UN M49 Standard country or area codes for statistical use: geographic regions
Japan, Regions
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)Encyclopaedia Britannica editors
Source GeoNames: GeoNames search results for Ryukyu Islands

Associated With

This source names Japan directly: "among and studied the Ainu people of Japan for decades, and this book, published posthumously by Columbia University Press after being edited from his research notes, documents Ainu religious belief..."

Source Ainu Creed and CultNeil Gordon Munro

This source names Japan directly: "its origin with Usui Mikao in 1920s Japan through its transformation and spread across North America and the wider Pacific over the twentieth century."

Source Alternate Currents: Reiki's Circulation in the Twentieth-Century North PacificJustin B. Stein

This source names Japan directly: "was actually practiced in contemporary Japan at the time of his fieldwork, examining household altars, memorial rites and the living relationship between families and their dead."

Source Ancestor Worship in Contemporary JapanRobert J. Smith

This source names Japan directly: "Ernest Mason Satow's Ancient Japanese Rituals, originally published in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan in 1879 and available today through the Internet Sacred Text Archive, is an..."

Source Ancient Japanese RitualsErnest Mason Satow (translator)

This source names Japan directly: "one of the three imperial regalia of Japan."

Source Atsuta Jingu (official shrine website)the holders' own account

This source names Japan directly: "1995 membership figure (about 9,000 in Japan, as many as 40,000 worldwide) at the time of the Tokyo subway sarin attack, and a 2004 estimate of 1,500 to 2,000 for its successor Aleph."

Source Aum Shinrikyo (New World Encyclopedia)
Ayutthaya, Cities

This source names Japan directly: "missions from as far as Persia, Japan, the Dutch Republic and France, alongside a royal court that patronized Theravada Buddhist temple building on a scale matched by few other capitals of the period."

Source The Buddhist World of Southeast AsiaDonald K. Swearer

This source names Japan directly: "It belongs to the Mahayana traditions of China, Korea and Japan, which keep the Buddha's birth, enlightenment and death as three separate commemorations."

Source The Princeton Dictionary of BuddhismRobert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr.
Buddhism, Religions

Practiced alongside Shinto since its sixth century introduction from the Asian mainland.

Source Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020Pew Research Center

This source names Japan directly: "Wikipedia's article on Buddhism in Japan, community-edited."

Source Buddhism in Japan (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Japan directly: "Bushido: The Soul of Japan, Inazo Nitobe's 1900 book from Leeds and Biddle, written in English by a Japanese Quaker convert for a foreign audience, is the book that made the word bushido a household..."

Source Bushido: The Soul of JapanInazo Nitobe

This source names Japan directly: "the bone disease named itai-itai in Japan from contaminated rice, and its use is now heavily restricted."

Source Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the ElementsJohn Emsley

This source names Japan directly: "ancient, medieval and early modern Japan in one place, rather than treating any single period alone."

Source Cahiers d'Extreme-Asie, vol. 21: The Way of Yin and YangMatthias Hayek and Hartmut O. Rotermund (guest eds.)

This source names Japan directly: "suppression in early Tokugawa Japan, covering the political and religious dimensions of the Shimabara Rebellion and the ideological grounds on which the shogunate treated Christian loyalty as..."

Source Deus Destroyed: The Image of Christianity in Early Modern JapanGeorge Elison

This source names Japan directly: "Dower's Embracing Defeat, Japan in the Wake of World War II, published by W."

Source Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War IIJohn W. Dower

This source names Japan directly: "Wikipedia's article on the Emperor of Japan, read directly for this pass, which states that under the Meiji Constitution of 1889 the Emperor held sovereign power in his own right, and that the 1947..."

Source Emperor of Japan (Wikipedia)
Emperor Ojin, Figures

This source names Japan directly: "and only after the army returned to Japan did she bear Ojin, whose reign later chroniclers set apart from ordinary rule with an unusually long life and an unbroken run of good fortune."

Source Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697W. G. Aston (translator)

This source names Japan directly: "own Shinto studies program in Japan, the university most closely associated with Shinto scholarship, giving direct access to Japanese language scholarship on kami, shrines, rites and festivals in..."

Source Encyclopedia of Shinto (Shinto Jiten)Kokugakuin University

This source names Japan directly: "Popular Religious Movements in Modern Japan, Susumu Shimazono's 2004 study from Trans Pacific Press, is a scholarly work by a leading Japanese scholar of religious studies with direct access to..."

Source From Salvation to Spirituality: Popular Religious Movements in Modern JapanSusumu Shimazono

This source names Japan directly: "drawn from his own years living in Japan from 1890."

Source Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Japan directly: "article on Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, Lafcadio Hearn's 1894 two volume, fifteen chapter collection of travel sketches from his 1890 to 1894 years in Japan, stating it "discusses several themes..."

Source Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Japan directly: "edition of Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, First Series, giving the sixteen part table of contents, which includes chapters devoted to small and remote shrine visits ("The Chief City of the Province..."

Source Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, First Series (Project Gutenberg)Lafcadio Hearn (digitized text, Project Gutenberg)

This source names Japan directly: "at the Kotoku-in temple in Kamakura, Japan."

Source Great Buddha of Kamakura (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Source Todai Temple (Encyclopaedia Britannica)

This source names Japan directly: "City, Iwate Prefecture, in northern Japan, begun in the fourteenth or fifteenth century when the people of the region, worshipping Mount Hayachine as a deity, built a performance tradition around..."

Source Hayachine Kagura (UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage)UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage
Hirohito, Figures

His reign name, Showa, is used for the era from 1926 to 1989 in Japanese dating.

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)Encyclopaedia Britannica editors

This source names Japan directly: "of conflicts across Sengoku period Japan in which leagues of Jodo Shinshu Buddhist priests, peasants, merchants and local warriors, known as Ikko-ikki and organized under the Honganji temple's..."

Source War and Faith: Ikko Ikki in Late Muromachi Japan (Tsang)Carol Richmond Tsang

This source names Japan directly: "article on the Imperial Regalia of Japan carries no named author or peer review process behind any given version of the page, and is continuously subject to further editing."

Source Imperial Regalia of Japan (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Japan directly: "Rescript on the Construction of a New Japan, popularly known as the Ningen Sengen or Humanity Declaration, is Emperor Showa's own 1946 imperial rescript in which he renounced the traditional claim..."

Source Imperial Rescript on the Construction of a New Japan (Ningen Sengen)Emperor Showa (Hirohito)
Izanami, Figures

This source names Japan directly: "directions, and bore the islands of Japan and a host of kami."

Source KojikiDonald L. Philippi (translator)

Carried out across Japan under the authority of the Tokugawa shogunate.

Source Kirishitan (Wikipedia)

This source names Japan directly: "Dobbins is a scholar of Japanese Buddhism, and this Indiana University Press book is his academic history of Jodo Shinshu, the Shin Buddhist school founded on Shinran's teaching, as it developed and..."

Source Jodo Shinshu: Shin Buddhism in Medieval JapanJames C. Dobbins

This source names Japan directly: "the Rinzai school of Zen Buddhism in Japan after a long period of decline."

Source Kannon by a Lotus Pond, accession 2025.91 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)The Metropolitan Museum of Art, catalogue entry
Kshitigarbha, Figures

This source names Japan directly: "Known in Japan as Jizo, he is venerated in East Asia as protector of travelers, expectant mothers and, distinctively, of deceased children, whose souls are said to be gathered under his robe..."

Source The Princeton Dictionary of BuddhismRobert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr.

This source names Japan directly: "Max Moerman is a scholar of Japanese religion, and this Harvard University Asia Center book is his scholarly study of the Kumano pilgrimage, examining how the mountainous Kumano region of Japan came..."

Source Localizing Paradise: Kumano Pilgrimage and the Religious Landscape of Premodern JapanD. Max Moerman

This source names Japan directly: "Marketing the Menacing Fetus in Japan is a scholarly study of mizuko kuyo, the memorial rites for aborted and miscarried fetuses that emerged as a significant commercial and religious practice in..."

Source Marketing the Menacing Fetus in JapanHelen Hardacre
Mizuko Kuyo, Rituals

This source names Japan directly: "date of Confucianism's adoption in Japan, which the article discusses without fixing a year."

Source Neo-Confucianism (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Japan directly: "Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan is a scholarly study of Buddhism's persecution during Japan's early Meiji era, when the new government's push toward State Shinto and its haibutsu kishaku..."

Source Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan: Buddhism and Its PersecutionJames Edward Ketelaar
Okami, Games

This source names Japan directly: "sent to cleanse a mythic ancient Japan of corruption spread by an eight headed serpent demon."

Source Okami (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Japan directly: "at Church Headquarters, Tenri City, Japan, with the Shinbashira presiding and about two hundred thousand followers returning to Jiba to observe it."

Source Oyasama 130th Anniversary Service Conducted (Tenrikyo Church Headquarters)

This source names Japan directly: "traditions of China, Korea and Japan, which mark birth, enlightenment and death as three separate commemorations."

Source The Princeton Dictionary of BuddhismRobert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr.

This source names Japan directly: "Ian Reader is a scholar of Japanese religion, and this academic book, published by Routledge, examines contemporary pilgrimage, including Japanese pilgrimage traditions such as the Shikoku circuit..."

Source Pilgrimage in the MarketplaceIan Reader

This source names Japan directly: "Stalker is a historian of modern Japan, not a member of Omoto, and her study of Onisaburo Deguchi was published by an independent university press rather than by the movement itself."

Source Prophet Motive: Deguchi Onisaburo, Oomoto, and the Rise of New Religions in Imperial JapanNancy K. Stalker

This source names Japan directly: "Religious Violence in Contemporary Japan, published by Curzon Press in 2000, is a scholarly study of Aum Shinrikyo and the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack, examining how the movement's teaching and..."

Source Religious Violence in Contemporary Japan: The Case of Aum ShinrikyoIan Reader

This source names Japan directly: "and Scriptural Cultures in Ancient Japan, published by the University of Hawai'i Press in 2017, is a scholarly study of the eighth century Japanese state sutra copying bureaus, arguing that the..."

Source Ritualized Writing: Buddhist Practice and Scriptural Cultures in Ancient JapanBryan D. Lowe

This source names Japan directly: "Vietnam and, in a more limited way, Japan, combining scholarly, ritual and administrative functions in a single role."

Source Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 1Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom (eds)
Ryukyuan, Pantheons

This source names Japan directly: "of the Ryukyu Islands of southern Japan, chiefly Okinawa."

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

This source names Japan directly: "teaching, the movement he began in Japan in 1930 by publishing a small magazine of the same name, Seicho-no-Ie meaning House of Growth."

Source Seimei no Jisso (Truth of Life)Masaharu Taniguchi

Showing 1 to 50 of 75 in Associated With, page 1 of 2.

Contains

Source Divinity Atlas Entity Records, First Edition
Ayabe, Sacred Sites
Source Omotokyo (Encyclopedia.com)Encyclopedia.com contributors
Source Dewa Sanzan (Wikipedia)
Source Divinity Atlas Entity Records, First Edition
Source Divinity Atlas Entity Records, First Edition
Source Divinity Atlas Entity Records, First Edition
Source Divinity Atlas Entity Records, First Edition
Source Divinity Atlas Entity Records, First Edition
Jiba, Sacred Sites
Source Wikipedia: TenrikyoWikipedia contributors
Source Kinpusen-ji and Ominesan-ji (Wikipedia)
Source Konkokyo (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Koyasan, Sacred Sites
Source Divinity Atlas Entity Records, First Edition
Source Divinity Atlas Entity Records, First Edition
Kyoto, Cities

Kyoto lies within modern Japan and was its imperial capital from 794 to 1868.

Source Kyoto: A Cultural HistoryJohn Dougill
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)Encyclopaedia Britannica editors
Source Divinity Atlas Entity Records, First Edition
Source Divinity Atlas Entity Records, First Edition
Source The Princeton Dictionary of BuddhismRobert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr.
Source Divinity Atlas Entity Records, First Edition
Nara, Cities
Source Divinity Atlas Entity Records, First Edition
Source Ryukyuan Religion (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Todai-ji, Sacred Sites
Source Divinity Atlas Entity Records, First Edition
Source Divinity Atlas Entity Records, First Edition

Namesake Of

Nihonium is named for Nihon, one of the Japanese names for Japan. Named in 2016 by the RIKEN team, the first element named for an East Asian country.

Source Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the ElementsJohn Emsley

Originated Here

Ainu, Cultures

Hokkaido, now part of Japan, is the center of Ainu life and of the modern Ainu revival.

Source The Ainu and Their Folk-LoreJohn Batchelor
Source Religious Violence in Contemporary Japan: The Case of Aum ShinrikyoIan Reader

An equinoctial observance particular to Japanese Buddhism, with no Indian precedent.

Source The Princeton Dictionary of BuddhismRobert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr.

The Japanese doll festival of the third day of the third month.

Source Encyclopedia of Shinto (Shinto Jiten)Kokugakuin University

Ho No Hana arose in Japan.

Source World Religions and Spirituality ProjectDavid G. Bromley (founding director) and the profile authors of record
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)Encyclopaedia Britannica editors
Source Shinto: A HistoryHelen Hardacre
Source Shinto: A HistoryHelen Hardacre
Source Jinja Honcho (Wikipedia)
Source Nihon Shoki (Wikipedia)
Source Obon (Wikipedia)

The Japanese new year, and the largest observance of the shrine calendar.

Source Encyclopedia of Shinto (Shinto Jiten)Kokugakuin University
Source Shinto: A HistoryHelen Hardacre
Source Tanabata (Wikipedia)
Source Shinto Directive (SCAPIN-448)General Headquarters, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers
Source Shinto: A HistoryHelen Hardacre

Spread Events Here

Source Buddhism in Japan (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Source The Oyasato-yakata Building-Complex (Tenrikyo Church Headquarters)
Source Accession to the Throne and Major State Ceremonies and Events (Imperial Household Agency)
Source Naruhito Proclaims His Enthronement in Ancient Ceremony (Reuters)Elaine Lies and Kiyoshi Takenaka

Kagoshima, Satsuma domain, Kyushu.

Source The Christian Century in Japan, 1549-1650C.R. Boxer
Source Shinto Directive (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Source History Of Tenrikyo (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Source Shikinen Sengu, the Largest Ritual at Ise Jingu (Visit Iseshima Bureau)
Source Religious Corporations Law (Encyclopedia of Shinto, Kokugakuin University)
Source Jinja Goshi: Shrine Mergers (Encyclopedia of Shinto, Kokugakuin University)
Source History Of Tenrikyo (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Source Fujisan, Sacred Place and Source of Artistic Inspiration (UNESCO World Heritage Centre)
Source History Of Tenrikyo (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Source The Life of Oyasama, Foundress of TenrikyoTenrikyo Church Headquarters (Tenrikyo Overseas Department, translator)
Source Tenrikyo Church Headquarters: Own Website, History Page (tenrikyo.or.jp)
Source Oyasama 130th Anniversary Service Conducted (Tenrikyo Church Headquarters)
Source History Of Tenrikyo (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Source History Of Tenrikyo (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Source Tenrikyo's Disaster Relief Activities in Miyagi Prefecture (Tenrikyo Online)
Source Association Of Shinto Shrines (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Source National Holidays Overview, Kenkoku Kinen no Hi Entry (Cabinet Office, Government of Japan)

Urakami village, near Nagasaki.

Source The Kakure Kirishitan of JapanStephen Turnbull
Source The Constitution of the Empire of Japan, 1889 (National Diet Library of Japan)
Source State Shinto (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Source Haibutsu Kishaku (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

Nationwide, with the severest violence in Kyushu.

Source The Christian Century in Japan, 1549-1650C.R. Boxer
In the Other Atlases

Is Discussed By

Also in Law Atlas: which discusses this subject.

Sources
1. Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020
Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 2025View the Source
2. The World Factbook (Central Intelligence Agency)
Central Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence AgencyView the Source
3. Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)
Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2024Ancient and Historical Regions: Japan, Stored modern-area property on this entity, cited to this source: JapanView the Source
4. The Constitution of Japan
National Diet of Japan, Government of Japan (National Diet of Japan), 1947
5. International Religious Freedom Report
United States Department of State, Office of International Religious Freedom, US Department of State, 2023View the Source
6. Court in Japan Orders the Dissolution of the Unification Church (Associated Press via PBS NewsHour, 2025)
Mari Yamaguchi, The Associated Press, via PBS NewsHour, 2025View the Source
7. Religious Violence in Contemporary Japan: The Case of Aum Shinrikyo
Ian Reader, Curzon Press, 2000Originated Here: Aum Shinrikyo, Stored origin-place property on this entity, cited to this source: Tokyo, Japan
8. Holy See-Japan Relations (Wikipedia)
The Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edition
Oxford University Press, Oxford University Pressdemonym / adjectival formView the Source
Shinto: A History
Helen Hardacre, Oxford University Press, 2017
  • Originated Here: Jinja, Stored founding-origin property on this entity, cited to this source: Japan
  • Originated Here: Jingu, Stored founding-origin property on this entity, cited to this source: Japan
  • Originated Here: Taisha, Stored founding-origin property on this entity, cited to this source: Japan
  • Originated Here: Torii, Stored origin-place property on this entity, cited to this source: Japan.
View the Source
Shinto Directive (SCAPIN-448)
General Headquarters, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, 1945Originated Here: The Shinto Directive, Opening sentences of the entity description
Quote, Originated Here: The Shinto Directive, Opening sentences of the entity description
An order issued by the Allied occupation authorities in Japan, formally SCAPIN-448, directing the Japanese government to disestablish State Shinto: to end all public funding, sponsorship and propagation of Shinto shrines and doctrine, remove Shinto teaching from schools, and disestablish the Shrine Bureau, the state agency that had administered shrines as instruments of national ideology since the Meiji era.
View the Source
Obon (Wikipedia)
Originated Here: Obon, Lead
Quote, Originated Here: Obon, Lead
is a fusion of the ancient Japanese belief in ancestral spirits and a Japanese Buddhist custom
View the Source
Jinja Honcho (Wikipedia)
Originated Here: Jinja Honcho, Lead
Quote, Originated Here: Jinja Honcho, Lead
oversees about 80,000 Shinto shrines in Japan
View the Source
Tanabata (Wikipedia)
Originated Here: Tanabata, Lead
Quote, Originated Here: Tanabata, Lead
Tanabata (Japanese: たなばた or 七夕; meaning "Evening of the Seventh"), also known as the Star Festival (星祭り, Hoshimatsuri), is a Japanese festival originating from the Chinese Qixi Festival.
View the Source
United Nations Statistics Division: UN M49 Standard country or area codes for statistical use: geographic regions
United Nations Statistics DivisionAncient and Historical Regions: East Asia, Geographic regions table, Eastern Asia
Quote, Ancient and Historical Regions: East Asia, Geographic regions table, Eastern Asia
Eastern Asia 030 China 156 CHN China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region 344 HKG China, Macao Special Administrative Region 446 MAC Democratic People's Republic of Korea 408 PRK Japan 392 JPN Mongolia 496 MNG LLDC Republic of Korea 410 KOR
View the Source
GeoNames: GeoNames search results for Ryukyu Islands
GeoNamesAncient and Historical Regions: Ryukyu Islands, Search results, matching entry
Quote, Ancient and Historical Regions: Ryukyu Islands, Search results, matching entry
Ryukyu Islands Further Isles,Great Luchu,Liu-chiu Islands,Liu-kiu Inseln,Liukiu,Luchu,Luchu Islands,Lutschu,Nansei ... 26.42328 127.88783 Japan , Okinawa Kunigami-gun > Kin Chō islands
View the Source
Nihon Shoki (Wikipedia)
Originated Here: Nihon Shoki, Lead section
Quote, Originated Here: Nihon Shoki, Lead section
The Nihon Shoki (日本書紀; Japanese pronunciation: [ɲ̟ì.hó̞ɰ̃́ ɕó̞.k̟ʲì]) or Nihongi (日本紀), sometimes translated as The Chronicles of Japan, is the second-oldest book of classical Japanese history.
View the Source
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

Choose a year to see this entry's facts and connections as the atlas records them at that moment: what it held then, what it held instead, and what it had not yet adopted. Choose Present for the current record.