Tashibunosho, Agricultural estate in Bungotakada, Japan

Tashibunosho is a historic agricultural estate in Bungotakada, Japan, made up of terraced rice paddies that follow the natural shape of the valley. The fields are still active and worked entirely by hand, without the use of modern machinery.

Tashibunosho took shape in the first half of the 11th century, when Usa Jingu and Amabiki Shrine opened paddies in Tashibu township, one of the six valley settlements of the Kunisaki Peninsula. It became one of Usa Jingu's eighteen "hon-misho" estates. In the late Kamakura period control slipped to warriors such as the Odawara clan, but the 1281 shinryo kogyo law returned it to Usa Jingu, after which descendants of its priests, the Tashibu, governed it.

The name Tashibu comes from Tashibu District, one of the six settlements (Rokugō) formed along the valleys of the Kunisaki Peninsula around Mount Futago. The estate was counted among Usa Jingū's "Honmi-shō Eighteen Places," and after 1281 its shrine priests' descendants took the name Tashibu and governed it. In 2010, 92 hectares were designated a national Important Cultural Landscape as "Tashibu-no-shō Ozaki Rural Landscape."

The terraced fields are best seen from the paths that run along the edges of the valley, where you get a clear view of how the paddies curve with the hillside. These are working fields, so staying on marked paths and keeping a respectful distance from the farmers makes the visit go smoothly.

While most estates in the region were reorganized into straight, square plots to make farming easier, this one kept its original curved layout. That makes it one of the few places where you can still see what rice paddies looked like before modern agricultural standards changed the shape of the land.