Central Yamaguchi · Kozan ParkNo.611★★★Open in map →
Rurikoji Five-Storied Pagoda
A fifteenth-century five-storey pagoda in a free public park at the top of Yamaguchi city. Its cypress-bark roof came off and went back on in a restoration that ran to the end of 2025, and the surrounding park never closes.
- FromShin-Yamaguchi Station
- ~20 minJR Yamaguchi Line, then a bus or a walk
- Get off atYamaguchi Station (JR Yamaguchi Line)
- From there
- Rurikoji Five-Storied Pagoda
Where it is
13 more notes in Yamaguchi · open the map →What to look for — in walking order
- The pond and the pagodathe standard approach, with five roofs reflected and the wooded hill behind them
- The pagoda close up31.2 metres to the tip of the finial, Japanese in style with Zen details worked in
- The uguisu-bari pavinga stretch of stone that answers with a chirp when you clap or stamp on it
- Kozan burial groundthe graves of the Mori lords of Hagi, up the steps beyond the paving
- Chinryuteia relocated house tied to the Satsuma and Choshu talks before the Meiji Restoration
How to actually get there
- Shin-Yamaguchi Station → Yamaguchi Station (JR Yamaguchi Line, about 20 minutes).
- Yamaguchi Station → Kozan-koen Gojunoto-mae (city community bus, about 15 minutes), or walk it in about half an hour.
- Take the pond side of the park first, for the standard view of the five roofs.
- Climb past the chirping paving to the Mori burial ground, then come back by way of Chinryutei.
- JR Yamaguchi Line from Shin-Yamaguchi
- Shin-Yamaguchi Station →(JR Yamaguchi Line, about 20 minutes)→ Yamaguchi Station, then the city community bus to the Kozan-koen Gojunoto-mae stop at the park entrance, about 15 minutes. Shin-Yamaguchi is the Sanyo Shinkansen stop, so this is the natural approach from Hiroshima or Hakata.
- Return from Yamaguchi Station
- Walk or ride back down to Yamaguchi Station and take the Yamaguchi Line south to Shin-Yamaguchi for the Shinkansen. The line is not frequent and community bus services thin out later in the day, so if you stay for the floodlighting, plan on walking back rather than waiting for a bus.
About the place
Rurikoji sits at the northern edge of Yamaguchi city, and its grounds double as a public park called Kozan. The pagoda is what people come for: five roofs of cypress bark stacked above a pond, with a wooded hill rising directly behind. The temple around it belongs to the Soto Zen school, but the tower is older than the present temple and was raised for a different one that stood on the same ground. The park is open around the clock and free to enter, with only the temple's small museum charging admission. Yamaguchi calls itself the Kyoto of the west, and this is the building that claim rests on.
How to enjoy it
Two hours here are not one experience but two. Daylight gives you the bark roof and the joinery; after sunset the tower is floodlit until ten and the park stays open, so an evening pass costs nothing and is usually the quieter one. If you can only come once, take the pond first and the cemetery steps afterwards, while there is still light on the stone.
Background & history
The tower was begun as a memorial. Ouchi Yoshihiro, head of the family that governed this part of Japan, was killed in a revolt against the shogunate in 1399, and his younger brother started a five-storey pagoda here to mourn him, dying himself before it was done. It was completed around 1442 and has stood ever since, through the fall of the Ouchi and the arrival of the Mori lords whose graves lie further up the slope. Its most recent work, a full re-laying of the cypress-bark roof, was finished at the end of December 2025.
Before you go
- Cash
- The park is free to enter and its car parks are free too, with only the temple museum charging. Buy the train ticket at Shin-Yamaguchi and keep coins for the community bus, which is the kind of service where a card reader is not guaranteed.
- Before you go
- The park itself has no closing time and the tower is lit until ten at night, but the temple's own buildings and museum keep daytime hours. The ground is level around the pond; the steps up to the burial ground are not.
- Another way
- By car, the Ogori interchange of the Chugoku Expressway is the nearest motorway exit. The park has several car parks of its own, and the prefectural office car park next door opens to visitors at weekends, on public holidays and over the new year.
- After you get off
- From Yamaguchi Station the park lies north through the town. The community bus runs to the Kozan-koen Gojunoto-mae stop at the entrance, and on foot it is a straight half-hour.