Kusado Inari Shrine, Inari shrine in Kusado, Fukuyama, Japan

Kusado Inari Shrine in Fukuyama consists of a single-story reception building with white walls, orange-wood lattice, and a dark tiled roof, and behind it a tall open orange framework supporting an upper hall with a curved dark roof and red railings. A large vermilion torii and a weathered stone torii with a sacred rope stand on the approach, flanked by stone lanterns.

According to shrine tradition, it began in 807 when Kūkai founded Myōō-in and installed it as that temple's guardian shrine. It first stood as a small shrine in the Kusado Sengen-chō settlement on a sandbank of the Ashida River, and its halls were repeatedly lost to floods. A ridge tag records a rebuilding in 1633 by Mizuno Katsunari, first lord of Fukuyama; in 1655 Mizuno Katsusada moved the shrine to its present site.

The shrine honours Ukanomitama-no-Kami, Hakutsuchi-no-Kami and Ōnamuchi-no-Kami, deities tied to food and harvest. Its name comes from Kusado, the medieval river-port town of Kusado Sengen-chō that once stood on a sandbank of the Ashida River. A sword smith of that town, Hokke Ichijō, is said to have enshrined an Inari image beside his house after a sword offering at Myōken-ji brought results.

The shrine stands in Kusado-chō, Fukuyama, next to Myōō-in and the Kusado Sengen-chō archaeological site. The Inari-bashi, a drum-shaped bridge, crosses the Seto River in front of the grounds, and the approach passes a grey stone torii with a sacred rope before the vermilion torii. The main hall sits on a concrete base above the worship hall, and from there the city of Fukuyama can be seen.

The shrine's main hall was moved in the late Showa era onto a concrete foundation built in the kake-zukuri style, cantilevered against the hillside. From the front of this hall visitors look out over the city of Fukuyama. The shrine also keeps the Kusado History and Folklore Museum within its grounds.