Shrines in Tokyo: Asakusa Shrine and 9 More, in Order

Asakusa Shrine stands beside Sensoji, and on the first page of a US English search for its name, three of the nine identifiable results lead to the temple instead. This guide lists ten Shinto shrines in Tokyo, gives Asakusa Shrine a section of its own, and sets out two half-day walks in order. Every place here is a jinja, a Shinto shrine, and every element score comes with its working.

What Counts as a Shrine in Tokyo — and What Does Not

A shrine in Tokyo is a jinja, a Shinto site with a torii gate and enshrined kami, not a Buddhist temple.

A torii is the gate marking the entrance, and kami are the deities a shrine enshrines. Tokyo Jinjacho, the metropolitan association of shrines, states on its site that it oversees 1,398 shrines in Tokyo, with no date attached. That is the number it oversees, not the number in the city: Yasukuni Shrine is independent of it and absent from its Chiyoda ward listing of seven. The count that carries a date is national — the Agency for Cultural Affairs, in its Religious Yearbook, gives 84,014 Shinto religious corporations across Japan as of December 31, 2024.

Temples are a different institution, and this site leaves them out. Sensoji in Asakusa and Gotokuji in Setagaya, the place English lists name as Tokyo’s cat destination, are both Buddhist, so neither appears below. The line matters in practice, because what each side publishes about conduct differs. Our English guide to Japanese shrines draws it the same way across the site.

What you can check	Shinto shrine (jinja)	Buddhist temple (tera)
Who is enshrined	Kami. Asakusa Shrine names three people its English page calls founders of Asakusa	A Buddhist image. Sensoji grew around a Kannon image, by Asakusa Shrine’s account of its origin
Which body lists it	Tokyo Jinjacho lists shrines ward by ward; some, like Yasukuni, stand independent of it	Not in that listing at all; temples belong to Buddhist orders
What the published etiquette says	Jinja Honcho’s English page: bow twice, clap twice, bow once	Naritasan’s steps: bow, offer a coin, put the palms together. Sensoji’s visiting page covers the water basin

The third row compares two texts, not two rules. Neither temple page we read, Naritasan’s and Sensoji’s, forbids clapping, and neither includes it, while Jinja Honcho calls two bows, two claps and one bow the basic form.

Asakusa Shrine: Not the Temple Next Door

Asakusa Shrine is a Shinto shrine in Taito, Tokyo, seven minutes on foot from Asakusa Station and next to Sensoji.

The shrine’s own access page gives seven minutes from Asakusa Station on the Ginza, Toei Asakusa and Tobu lines, ten from the Tsukuba Express. It publishes no hours for the grounds, only for the office: 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on weekdays, to 4:30 p.m. at weekends and on public holidays. That window is when a goshuin, a seal and calligraphy given as a record of a visit, is written, at ¥500 (approx. US$3) each.

Three Founders of Asakusa, Not Three Myths

The shrine enshrines three deities, and its English page calls them the founders of Asakusa rather than figures out of myth.

That English page spells them Hajinomatsuti, Hamanari and Takenari, and says they “are recognized as the founders of Asakusa and revered as deities.” Tokyo Jinjacho lists the same three. By the shrine’s account, in 628 the Hinokuma brothers drew a Kannon image from the Sumida river and Haji enshrined it at his house. The shrine’s own founding year it answers plainly: the exact year is unknown, placed from the late Heian or early Kamakura period onward.

Why the Shrine and the Temple Share a Precinct

Sensoji began as the house where that Kannon image was enshrined, and the shrine was founded later beside the temple’s hall.

The shrine’s history calls that house becoming a temple the origin of Sensoji in the Sensoji Engi, and says descendants of the family founded Sanja Gongen-sha beside the Kannon hall. The two were administered together until the government ordered Shinto and Buddhism separated: the shrine was renamed in 1868 and became Asakusa Shrine in 1873. We read the US results for the shrine’s name on September 20, 2026, with personalisation off: of the nine we could identify, three belonged to the temple, and the local tourism federation’s own page carried “Asakusa Temple” in its title.

The 1649 Worship Hall and Its 1946 Designation

The worship hall was built under the third shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu around 1649 and became an Important Cultural Property in 1946.

The national register of designated cultural properties carries it as one building, designated November 29, 1946, in Asakusa 2-chome, Taito, dated to the early Edo period around 1649. The entry names it the haiden, the hall where visitors pray, seven bays by three with its corridor. Tokyo’s cultural property pages give the same date.

Sanja Matsuri, and What Is Actually Designated

Sanja Matsuri runs on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday anchored to the third Saturday of May, across 44 parish districts.

In 2026 that meant May 15 to 17, with about 100 portable shrines moving together from noon on the Saturday. The shrine’s festival page puts the three-day crowd at about 1.8 million, without naming a year. What carries a designation is not the festival but the binzasara, a clapper dance performed during it: Tokyo designated “the binzasara of Asakusa Shrine” an intangible folk cultural property on November 16, 1956, and the national government selected it for record-keeping in 2014. Write-ups that call the festival a designated property have moved the label from the dance to the event.

Nine More Shrines in Tokyo, by Element

Nine more shrines follow, grouped by element: two Void, three Earth, two Fire, one Wind and the single Water shrine in our Tokyo set.

The table places each one; hours and goshuin come further down.

Shrine	Ward	Nearest station (walk)	Element	Score, confidence
Asakusa Shrine	Taito	Asakusa, 7 min	Void	60, medium
Meiji Jingu	Shibuya	Harajuku; 10 min inside the grounds	Void	100, high
Suitengu	Chuo	Suitengumae Exit 5, 1 min	Void	75, high
Kanda Myojin	Chiyoda	Ochanomizu, 5 min	Earth	90, high
Hie Shrine	Chiyoda	Akasaka Exit 2, 3 min	Earth	105, high
Hanazono Shrine	Shinjuku	Shinjuku-sanchome Exit E2, 0 min	Earth	75, high
Tokyo Daijingu	Chiyoda	Iidabashi, about 5 min	Fire	75, high
Imado Shrine	Taito	Asakusa, 15 min	Fire	60, medium
Nezu Shrine	Bunkyo	Nezu or Sendagi, 5 min	Wind	60, medium
Ebara Shrine	Shinagawa	Shimbamba, 3 min (our database)	Water	85, high

Void: Meiji Jingu and Suitengu

Void, in our scheme, covers shrines whose deities stand at the beginning of all things or at the founding of the state.

Meiji Jingu enshrines Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken and was created in 1920 across about 700,000 square meters, planted with roughly 100,000 donated trees. It gives no walking time from a station, only ten minutes from each entrance to the main hall, and its gates move with sunrise and sunset. It also publishes its own crowding windows: 10 p.m. on December 31 to 3 a.m. on January 1, and after 10 a.m. on January 1 to 3. Our guide to Meiji Jingu covers the walk in. Void 100, the highest here.

Suitengu sits in Nihonbashi, one minute from Suitengumae Exit 5, and opens 7:00 to 18:00. Arima Yorinori, ninth lord of Kurume, branched the shrine he kept privately to his Mita Akabane estate in 1818; the halls were rebuilt with base isolation in 2016. Alongside Ame-no-Minakanushi, deity of the beginning of heaven and earth, it enshrines Emperor Antoku, Kenreimon-in and Nii-no-Ama. Void 75.

Earth and Fire: Kanda Myojin, Hie, Hanazono, Tokyo Daijingu and Imado

Earth, in our scheme, covers deities of land and harvest; Fire covers the sun and those who made their name in war.

Kanda Myojin was founded in 730 and moved to its present hill in 1616, and enshrines Onamuchi, Sukunahikona and Taira no Masakado, the last added in 1309. Its festival alternates, and the 2026 Kanda Matsuri is an off-year with no procession and no portable shrine entry. Earth 90.

Hie Shrine in Nagatacho enshrines Oyamakui with three deities alongside him and opens 6:00 to 17:00. At Earth 105 it holds the highest score in this guide, with deity, site and lineage all pointing the same way.

Hanazono Shrine is zero minutes from Shinjuku-sanchome Exit E2. Its own history dates the name to 1965, when the subordinate Otori shrine was merged into it. The site lists no deities; Tokyo Jinjacho gives Ukanomitama, the rice deity behind every Inari shrine, and Yamato Takeru. Earth 75.

Tokyo Daijingu was created in 1880 to worship Ise from Tokyo, and enshrines Amaterasu and Toyouke with the three creation deities and Yamatohime. Its grounds open 6:00 to 21:00, the longest published day of the ten here. Compare the shrine it faces in our guide to Ise Grand Shrine. Fire 75.

Imado Shrine, fifteen minutes north of Asakusa Station, is the one English lists name as Tokyo’s cat shrine. It enshrines four deities, including Fukurokuju, opens 9:00 to 16:00 year round, and gives goshuin only as pre-written sheets. We walked all 14 internal links on its official site and found no instance of maneki-neko, the beckoning cat, nor any word for cat. Fire 60.

Wind and Water: Nezu and Ebara

Wind, in our scheme, covers storm deities and Sugawara Michizane; Water covers rivers, rain and dragons, and Tokyo has one.

Nezu Shrine in Bunkyo is a complete 1706 complex of halls, gates and fence, with five deities led by Susanoo. Its published hours are the Karamon gate’s, changing every month and running midnight to 7 p.m. on January 1. Our guide to Nezu Shrine covers its azaleas and festival. Wind 60.

Ebara Shrine in Shinagawa was founded in 709 by the Tokyo Jinjacho entry and served the Shinagawa post town. It enshrines six deities led by Takaokami, a deity of water, rain and dragons, on riverside ground. At Water 85 it is the only one of our 32 Tokyo shrines that leads with Water. Its own site returned no readable text, so no hours appear above.

In What Order: Two Half-Days That Work

Two half-days work better than one long day: an east walk from Asakusa to Kanda, and a west walk from Harajuku.

The order comes from approximate coordinates in our own database, which says plainly that they are good for sequence and not for directions; walking times are each shrine’s own. What shapes both routes is the office rather than the gate: seals at Asakusa Shrine and Imado stop at 4 p.m., so a day ending in Asakusa ends at a closed window.

The east walk runs Asakusa Shrine, north to Imado, then south to Suitengu and Kanda Myojin; Suitengu opens at 7:00, so it moves to the front on a short day. The west walk starts at Meiji Jingu, which asks for the most time of the ten, then Hanazono and Hie. Nezu and Tokyo Daijingu lie north of the east route and join it with an early start. Ebara is far to the south and needs a trip of its own.

The Five Elements Ring — and the Gap Tokyo Leaves

The five elements sit in a ring — Earth, Fire, Void, Water, Wind — in which each shifts the flow of the next.

The ring is not a chart of good and bad pairings, and a shrine whose element shifts the flow of yours is not a warning. Tokyo’s limit is arithmetic rather than doctrine: of the 32 shrines in our Tokyo database, Ebara alone leads with Water, and the next highest water score is Tsukiji Namiyoke at 25, from its sea-side location rather than its main deity. Outside Tokyo the balance differs, and Itsukushima scores 130 as Water.

Element	Shifts the flow of	Shrines in this guide	Highest score here
Earth	Fire	Kanda Myojin, Hie, Hanazono	Hie, 105
Fire	Void	Tokyo Daijingu, Imado	Tokyo Daijingu, 75
Void	Water	Asakusa Shrine, Meiji Jingu, Suitengu	Meiji Jingu, 100
Water	Wind	Ebara	Ebara, 85
Wind	Earth	Nezu	Nezu, 60

Five Elements Classification: The Score Sheet for All Ten

Every score below comes with the layer that produced each point, so the classification can be checked rather than taken on trust.

This is Kannavi’s own classification, not a teaching of any shrine and not a fortune. The classifier reads four layers: a main deity is worth 60, each co-enshrined deity 15, the terrain 15 or 25, the lineage 15. Confidence is high when the leading element clears the rest, medium when a second sits close behind. We re-ran all ten against the deities measured from each shrine’s own listing, and nine came back unchanged.

Shrine	Element	Score	Confidence	What produced the points
Asakusa Shrine	Void	60	medium	Founder deities +60 Void; flat city site +15 Earth
Meiji Jingu	Void	100	high	Emperor Meiji +60; Empress Shoken +15; long approach, open sky +25
Suitengu	Void	75	high	Ame-no-Minakanushi +60; Emperor Antoku +15; flat city site +15 Earth; Suitengu lineage +15 Water
Kanda Myojin	Earth	90	high	Onamuchi +60; Sukunahikona +15; Masakado +15 Fire; hilltop +15
Hie Shrine	Earth	105	high	Oyamakui +60; Kunitokotachi +15; Izanami +15 Void; hilltop +15; Hie lineage +15
Hanazono Shrine	Earth	75	high	Ukanomitama +60; Yamato Takeru +15 Fire; flat city site +15
Tokyo Daijingu	Fire	75	high	Amaterasu as sun deity +60; Toyouke +15 Earth; Ame-no-Minakanushi +15 Void; flat site +15 Earth; Shinmei lineage +15
Imado Shrine	Fire	60	medium	Emperor Ojin +60; Izanagi and Izanami +15 Void each; riverside ground +25 Water
Nezu Shrine	Wind	60	medium	Susanoo as storm deity +60; Oyamakui +15 Earth; Hondawake +15 Fire; hilltop +15 Earth
Ebara Shrine	Water	85	high	Takaokami as water deity +60; riverside ground +25

Three rows need disclosure. Asakusa Shrine’s deities sit in our database under an explicit founder category rather than one read off their names, because they are historical people, and that entry produces the 60. Suitengu is the shrine that moved: 60 at medium confidence, 75 at high once Emperor Antoku, Kenreimon-in and Nii-no-Ama were added. Ebara still rests on the seed entry, because its site returned no text; Tokyo Jinjacho lists Takaokami first of six, the deity producing the 60. Beyond Tokyo, Fushimi Inari Taisha scores 100 as Earth and Yasaka Jinja, another Susanoo shrine, 75 as Wind against Nezu’s 60.

Hours, Goshuin and What the Shrines Actually Publish

Eight of these ten shrines publish no goshuin price at all, and no public body collects the figures, so we give none.

Asakusa Shrine states ¥500 each in the text of its own site, and Nezu Shrine publishes the same figure as an image of its price board. Jinja Honcho’s page on goshuin explains the practice and names no price, and neither it, the Agency for Cultural Affairs nor Tokyo Jinjacho publishes a collected figure. Travel media quote a range; without a source, this guide repeats none.

Shrine	Hours for the grounds	Office or seal hours	Goshuin price on its own site
Asakusa Shrine	Not published	9:00–16:00; to 16:30 at weekends and on holidays	¥500 each, in text
Meiji Jingu	Published, by month	Seals 9:00 to closing	Not published
Suitengu	7:00–18:00	Amulet office 8:00–18:00	Not published
Kanda Myojin	Not published	Hall worship 9:00–15:45	Not published; no seal page
Hie Shrine	6:00–17:00	8:00–16:00	Not published
Hanazono Shrine	Not published	9:00–20:00	Not published
Tokyo Daijingu	6:00–21:00	Seals 9:00–17:00	Not published
Imado Shrine	Not published	9:00–16:00, no closing days	Not published; pre-written sheets
Nezu Shrine	Karamon gate, by month	By month, from 9:30	¥500 each, on an image of the price board
Ebara Shrine	Not retrieved	Not retrieved	Not retrieved

Conduct at the hall is what every shrine here leaves to one source. Jinja Honcho’s English page gives it in three lines: “Bow deeply, twice.” Then, hands together at the chest, “Clap twice to show respect.” Then “Bow deeply once.” Individual shrines keep their own variants, and the association says so.

Frequently Asked Questions

These come from each shrine’s own pages unless another source is named.

Q. Are Asakusa Shrine and Sensoji Temple the same?

A. No — they share a precinct and a history, but they are separate institutions. By Asakusa Shrine’s own account, the house where a Kannon image was enshrined in 628 became the temple, and descendants of that family founded the shrine beside its hall. They were run together until the state separated Shinto and Buddhism in 1868; the shrine took its present name in 1873.

Q. What is Asakusa Shrine famous for?

A. Sanja Matsuri, held on the Friday to Sunday anchored to the third Saturday of May across 44 parish districts, with around 100 portable shrines moving together on the Saturday; the shrine puts the three-day crowd at about 1.8 million, year unstated. It is also where the binzasara dance, designated by Tokyo in 1956, is performed.

Q. How many shrines are there in Tokyo?

A. There is no published count of every shrine in the city. Tokyo Jinjacho says it oversees 1,398 and shows no date for the figure, and shrines independent of it, Yasukuni among them, fall outside that number. The figure with a date is national: 84,014 Shinto religious corporations across Japan as of December 31, 2024.

Q. What is the most famous shrine in Tokyo?

A. We found no ranking with a traceable source. The National Police Agency stopped publishing its New Year crowd counts after the figures for 2009, and nothing public replaced them. What can be checked is what each shrine states: Meiji Jingu its New Year crowding windows, Asakusa Shrine its 1.8 million over three days. Different measures make no league table.

Q. Which is the oldest shrine in Tokyo?

A. It depends which claims are stated as years and which as tradition. Ebara Shrine is recorded as founded in 709 and Kanda Myojin in 730, both as dates. Nezu Shrine’s founding is given as tradition, more than 1,900 years ago, and Asakusa Shrine states that its own year is unknown.

Q. Which shrine in Tokyo is controversial?

A. Yasukuni Shrine, in Chiyoda. By its own account it began in 1869 as a shrine for the war dead, was renamed Yasukuni in 1879 with special status under the pre-war system, and enshrines about 2,466,000 spirits. It stands independent of Tokyo Jinjacho and is absent from that listing. This guide takes no position.

Q. Is there a cat shrine in Tokyo?

A. English lists point to two places, and one is a temple. Gotokuji in Setagaya is Buddhist and outside this site’s scope. Imado Shrine is a shrine, but all 14 internal links of its official site carry no mention of the beckoning cat, or any word for cat.

Summary

Ten shrines, one of them the reason this page exists, and two walks built on published hours.

• Asakusa Shrine stands beside Sensoji, with three deities its English page calls the founders of Asakusa; its worship hall of about 1649 was designated in 1946.
• Its grounds have no published hours; the office runs 9:00 to 16:00, to 16:30 at weekends, and goshuin are ¥500 each.
• Tokyo Jinjacho says it oversees 1,398 shrines with no date attached; shrines independent of it fall outside that number.
• East half-day: Asakusa Shrine, Imado, Suitengu, Kanda Myojin. West: Meiji Jingu, Hanazono, Hie.
• Of 32 Tokyo shrines in our database, Ebara alone leads with Water, so a five-element circuit needs a second trip.
• In the Kannavi classification, Asakusa Shrine scores 60 as Void, with the layer behind every point shown.

Next: read our guides to Meiji Jingu and Nezu Shrine, see Nikko Toshogu outside the city, or return to the English guide to Japanese shrines.

The confusion this page began with is nobody’s mistake. A family enshrined an image, the house became a temple, and generations later the descendants were enshrined next door; for twelve centuries nothing required the two to be told apart. The line drawn in 1868 is recent by the standard of the ground it runs through.