Steep-roof farmhouses in snow country — a UNESCO-listed village that looks carved from a fairy tale
Shirakawa-go is a UNESCO World Heritage village in the remote Shogawa River valley of Gifu prefecture, famous for its gassho-zukuri farmhouses — structures with dramatically steep thatched roofs (gassho means 'hands in prayer,' which the roofline resembles) designed to shed heavy mountain snow and accommodate large multigenerational households under one roof, often including silkworm cultivation in the upper storeys. In winter the valley fills with snow and the farmhouses disappear into white silence; floodlit night illumination events transform the village into a scene of extraordinary beaut…
The gassho-zukuri architectural tradition developed in the isolated Shogawa River valley over 300 years, peaking in the 17th–19th centuries when the valley's isolation forced self-sufficiency. The steep roofs — sometimes 60 degrees pitch — could shed the valley's 2–3 metres of annual snowfall and provided warm upper floors for silkworm cultivation, the valley's primary income. When a new road connected the valley to Kanazawa in the 1960s, the farmhouses began to be abandoned; residents organised to preserve and maintain them. UNESCO inscribed Shirakawa-go and neighbouring Gokayama in 1995.