Q.How large are Nara’s four World Heritage properties?

Property areas and buffer zones at a glance

These figures follow UNESCO’s listings, checked on October 16, 2026. Component counts also draw on Agency for Cultural Affairs descriptions and the 2016 Kii boundary modification proposal. The Kii figures cover Nara, Wakayama and Mie together, not Nara alone. Ancient Nara’s buffer zone is rounded to about 1,962 ha because UNESCO and Japanese documents differ slightly. The roughly 40-fold difference between Ancient Nara and the Horyu-ji Area is calculated as 616.9 ÷ 15.3.

What does a buffer zone protect?

The Agency for Cultural Affairs’ World Heritage glossary describes a buffer zone as an area around a property where controls on use and development provide additional protection. It is distinct from the property itself. UNESCO’s 2026 listing gives Asuka-Fujiwara a 1,127.93 ha buffer zone—about eight times its 137.99 ha property area (calculated). Compared with Asuka Village’s 24.10 km², or 2,410 ha, in the Geospatial Information Authority’s July 1, 2026 area survey, that is slightly less than half as large. The buffer zone also extends into Kashihara and Sakurai; this does not mean it occupies nearly half of Asuka Village.

Putting the areas in perspective

Ancient Nara’s 616.9 ha is about 1.2 times Nara Park’s 511.33 ha as a prefectural urban park, the area given by Nara Prefecture under its April 2017 revised designation. It is about five times the approximately 122 ha national government park area at the Heijo Palace Site in the Kinki Regional Development Bureau’s June 2021 development and management policy. These ratios are calculated. Heijo Palace Site has different areas depending on whether the boundary is that of the park, the World Heritage component or the Special Historic Site. The Horyu-ji Area’s 15.3 ha is only about 1.1% of Ikaruga Town’s 14.27 km², as recorded in the July 1, 2026 national area survey; this ratio is calculated after converting units.

The Kii property spans three prefectures

The 2016 boundary modification proposal gives the entire Kii property an area of 506.4 ha and a buffer zone of 12,100 ha. A Nara-only total cannot be established because prefectural breakdowns for the pilgrimage routes are not published. The six Yoshino–Ōmine sacred-site components, all within Nara, have a combined property area of 44.8 ha and buffer zone of 916 ha. Together with the cross-prefectural Ōmine Okugakemichi and Kumano Sankeimichi Kohechi routes, eight components involve Nara. The World Heritage sections of Ōmine Okugakemichi total 86.9 km, a different scope from the roughly 170 km commonly cited for the full route.

Datasets behind this article

• 世界遺産国土交通省

  National Land Numerical Information: World Cultural Heritage Data

  GIS polygons of World Heritage property areas and buffer zones in Japan, including three of Nara’s four inscribed sites — the base data for analyzing tourism circuits now that Asuka-Fujiwara has joined them.

  💡Questions this data can answer

  What are the exact boundaries of World Heritage properties and buffer zones in Nara?

  SHP

  Updated2026-10-12
• 世界遺産奈良市

  Nara City Designated Cultural Properties and World Heritage Zone Data

  City-designated cultural properties as CSV, plus shapefiles of the property areas, buffer zones and harmonization areas of the World Heritage “Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara” — rare GIS-ready data for tourism mapping.

  💡Questions this data can answer

  Where exactly are the property areas and buffer zones of Ancient Nara?

  CSVSHP

  Updated2026-10-12
• 世界遺産世界遺産「飛鳥・藤原」登録推進協議会

  Component Parts of the World Heritage “Asuka-Fujiwara”

  The official list of all 19 component parts of “Ancient Capitals of Asuka and Fujiwara”, inscribed on July 26, 2026, at the 48th session of the World Heritage Committee in Busan, South Korea — including the Asuka Palace Site, Fujiwara Palace Site, Ishibutai Kofun and Kitora Kofun, each with name, location and designation date.

  💡Questions this data can answer

  What are the 19 component parts of Asuka-Fujiwara and where is each located?

  HTML

  Updated2026-10-12
• 明日香村国土交通省

  Current State of Asuka Village (MLIT Council Document)

  The most comprehensive public compilation of Asuka Village tourism statistics, prepared for the national land council under the Asuka Law: long-term visitor and overnight-stay trends from the 1970s to 2022, admissions by attraction, and visitor demographics.

  💡Questions this data can answer

  How have Asuka Village’s annual visitor numbers changed over the long term?

  PDF

  Updated2026-10-12

Related reading

• How many World Heritage sites does Nara have, and where are they?
• Asuka-Fujiwara is now World Heritage — what was decided, and when?
• How many more visitors could World Heritage status bring to Asuka-Fujiwara?