Yanaka Cemetery, Public cemetery in Yanaka district, Tokyo, Japan
Yanaka Cemetery is a large burial ground with over 7,000 graves arranged along stone paths and featuring traditional stone monuments throughout the grounds. A central avenue lined with cherry trees provides the main circulation route through the site.
Yanaka Cemetery opened on 1 September 1874, when the Meiji government took part of Tennō-ji's grounds to create a public burial site under Tokyo Prefecture, after the separation of Shinto and Buddhism made temple cemeteries hard to use for Shinto funerals. It was renamed Yanaka Reien in 1935. In 1893 Jōtokurin-ji was built beside it so that memorial services could be held.
The central path was once the approach to Tennō-ji, and the teahouses that lined its entrance gave the cemetery's flower shop the nickname "Ochaya" (teahouse), still used by cemetery staff. The grounds hold the graves of Shibusawa Eiichi, Hideo Hatoyama, Yokoyama Taikan and the sumo wrestler Tochigiyama, among some 7,000 tombs.
The grounds are within a short walk from Nippori Station and easy to reach by train. Visitors should wear sturdy shoes for walking on stone paths and can spend as long as needed to explore at a relaxed pace.
The grounds contain ruins of a five-story pagoda that burned down in 1957 and later inspired a novelist to write about the event. The cemetery maintains its own police station to manage the extensive grounds and visitor activity.
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