Originally erected in 1912 as a steel structure modeled on the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Tsuutenkaku in Osaka enshrines a statue of Billiken, a god of happiness with which many tourists are familiar and that is believed to bring good luck if you rub the soles of his feet. Nearby is the Shinsekai ("New World") district, where the skewers of fried pork have won fame.

Registered as one of the Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto UNESCO World Cultural Heritage sites, Kiyomizu-dera is a temple complex of 15 Buddhist shrines including some that have been designated national treasures or important cultural properties. Fed by cold spring waters, the Otowa-no-taki is an especially renowned waterfall and the source of the formal name for the Kiyomizu-no-butai main hall and the temple itself.

Under large-scale restoration until 2019 (partly unable to visit).

As a government-proclaimed "place of scenic beauty," Nara Park contains numerous national treasures and world heritage properties, and attracts many tourists from inside Japan and abroad throughout the year. It is especially renowned for its freely roaming deer population and as the home to Nara's Great Buddha.

As perhaps the company that best symbolizes Japan today, Toyota Motor Corporation has restored a red-brick factory structure in the Nishi Ward of Nagoya—where the Toyota Group has its roots—and opened it to the public as a "heritage site of modernization." This museum comprises wings respectively devoted to textile machinery, automobiles, a "Technoland" exhibition, and steam engines among other themes, effectively showcasing the evolution of manufacturing processes and the progress of modern technology.