Kyoto · Sights

Best Temple in Kyoto

49 places, each checked by our team.

• Adashino Nenbutsu-ji 化野念仏寺Saga-Toriimoto / Arashiyama — An eerie, moving temple in northern Sagano where some 8,000 stone Buddhas and memorial stones for the unnamed dead are gathered, lit by a thousand…
• Bishamon-do Temple 毘沙門堂門跡Yamashina — A Tendai monzeki temple in Yamashina known for its painted sliding doors with shifting perspectives and a maple-carpeted stairway in autumn.
• Byodo-in 平等院Uji — Uji's Phoenix Hall, a weightless 1053 pavilion reflected in a pond and pictured on every 10-yen coin, with a superb modern museum of its Heian…
• Chion-in 知恩院Higashiyama — Head temple of Jodo Buddhism with Japan's largest surviving wooden temple gate, a 70-ton bell rung by 17 monks on New Year's Eve, and a vast…
• Daigo-ji 醍醐寺Daigo / Fushimi Ward — A sprawling mountain temple in southeast Kyoto with Kyoto's oldest building, a 951 five-storey pagoda, a Momoyama garden designed for Hideyoshi, and…
• Daikaku-ji 大覚寺Saga / Arashiyama — A former imperial villa-temple in Saga with vermilion corridors, painted sliding doors and Osawa-no-ike, Japan's oldest surviving garden pond, made…
• Daitoku-ji and Subtemples 大徳寺Murasakino / Kita Ward — A walled Zen city of more than twenty subtemples where the tea ceremony took shape, with famous small dry gardens at Daisen-in, Zuiho-in and…
• Eikando (Zenrin-ji) 永観堂 (禅林寺)Okazaki / Nanzen-ji — Kyoto's most celebrated autumn-leaf temple, with some 3,000 maples, a hillside pagoda, a covered "dragon staircase" and the rare Mikaeri Amida…
• Enko-ji Temple 圓光寺Ichijoji — A Zen temple in Ichijoji famous for its Jugyu-no-niwa garden framed by maples, a suikinkutsu water harp and a small bamboo grove.
• Ginkaku-ji (Silver Pavilion) 銀閣寺 (慈照寺)Higashiyama / Sakyo — The understated counterpart to the Golden Pavilion: a never-silvered Muromachi pavilion, a sculpted cone of white sand and a moss garden on a…
• Gio-ji 祇王寺Sagano / Arashiyama — A tiny nunnery hidden in a maple-shaded hollow of Sagano, where a thatched hut sits above a carpet of moss and a round window glows green, the…
• Higashi Hongan-ji 東本願寺Kyoto Station north — A free head temple five minutes' walk from Kyoto Station whose Goeido is among the largest wooden buildings in the world, with a coil of rope made…
• Honen-in 法然院Shishigatani / Sakyo — A free, moss-wrapped hermitage temple just off the Philosopher's Path, entered through a thatched gate between two raked sand mounds whose patterns…
• Hosen-in 宝泉院Ohara / Sakyo — A small Ohara subtemple where you sit with matcha in a tatami room whose open sides frame a bamboo grove and a 700-year-old pine like a living…
• Jakko-in Temple 寂光院Ohara — A small nunnery in rural Ohara linked to the Tale of the Heike, reached by a lane through rice fields and woods.
• Jingo-ji Temple 神護寺Takao — A mountain temple in Takao reached by a long stone stairway, with a Kondo hall and a famous valley view where you can throw kawarake discs.
• Jojakko-ji 常寂光寺Sagano / Arashiyama — A hillside temple of mossy steps and a thatched gate climbing under maples to a small pagoda with a view over Sagano and the city, one of…
• Kegon-ji (Suzumushi-dera) 華厳寺 (鈴虫寺)Matsuo / Nishikyo — The Bell Cricket Temple, where crickets sing all year in glass cases while a monk delivers a witty sermon with tea and sweets, and a straw-sandalled…
• Kennin-ji 建仁寺Gion — Kyoto's oldest Zen temple, hidden in plain sight behind Gion, with a twin-dragon ceiling painting, Sotatsu's Wind and Thunder Gods screen in replica…
• Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion) 金閣寺 (鹿苑寺)Kinugasa / Kita Ward — The Golden Pavilion: a three-storey Zen reliquary covered in gold leaf, mirrored in Kyokochi pond, and one of the most photographed buildings in…
• Kiyomizu-dera 清水寺Higashiyama — Kyoto's most famous temple, its main hall cantilevered over a forested ravine on 18 giant zelkova pillars, with the whole city laid out below and…
• Kodai-ji 高台寺Higashiyama / Gion — The memorial temple of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's widow Nene, with gold-lacquer interiors, a bamboo grove, a raked garden that hosts bold…
• Konkai Komyo-ji Temple (Kurodani) 金戒光明寺（くろ谷）Okazaki / Kurodani — A head temple of Jodo Buddhism on a hill above Okazaki, with a massive gate, city views and links to the Shinsengumi era.
• Kozan-ji 高山寺Takao / Ukyo — A mountain temple in the Takao forests that owns the Choju-giga, the 12th-century scrolls of frolicking rabbits and frogs often called Japan's first…
• Kurama-dera 鞍馬寺Kurama / Sakyo — A mountain temple in the cedar forests north of Kyoto, home of the legendary tengu and birthplace of Reiki, linked to Kibune by a root-tangled…
• Manpuku-ji Temple 黄檗山萬福寺Uji / Obaku — Head temple of the Obaku Zen school, built in Ming Chinese style with distinctive halls and a large wooden fish drum.
• Manshu-in Monzeki Temple 曼殊院門跡Ichijoji / Shugakuin — An elegant monzeki temple in northeast Kyoto with a dry landscape garden and refined shoin rooms.
• Mimuroto-ji 三室戸寺Uji — Uji's "flower temple": 20,000 azaleas in May, 20,000 hydrangeas in June, and lotus in July, with a heart-shaped hydrangea hunt that went viral.
• Myoshin-ji and Taizo-in 妙心寺・退蔵院Hanazono / Ukyo — A huge walled Zen complex of 46 subtemples, with a glaring "dragon that watches from every angle" on the Hatto ceiling and the beautiful Taizo-in…
• Nanzen-ji and Suirokaku Aqueduct 南禅寺・水路閣Okazaki / Nanzen-ji — One of Japan's most important Zen temples, with a towering Sanmon gate you can climb, a Kobori Enshu rock garden, and a red-brick Meiji aqueduct…
• Nariai-ji Temple 成相寺Amanohashidate — A mountain temple high above Amanohashidate, number 28 on the Saigoku pilgrimage, with one of the best views of the sandbar.
• Ninna-ji 仁和寺Omuro / Ukyo — A former imperial residence-temple with a palace-like Goten complex, a five-storey pagoda and Kyoto's latest-blooming cherries, the low, bushy…
• Nishi Hongan-ji 西本願寺Kyoto Station north / Horikawa — Free-to-enter head temple of Jodo Shinshu, ten minutes from Kyoto Station, with one of the largest wooden halls in Japan and the lavish…
• Nison-in Temple 二尊院Sagano / Arashiyama — A Tendai temple in Sagano with a long maple-lined approach known as the Momiji-no-Baba and twin Buddha statues.
• Otagi Nenbutsu-ji 愛宕念仏寺Saga-Toriimoto / Arashiyama — A mossy hillside temple at the far end of Saga-Toriimoto populated by 1,200 rakan statues carved by amateurs, each with its own face: laughing,…
• Rokuharamitsu-ji 六波羅蜜寺Higashiyama / Matsubara — A small city temple near Gion that holds one of Japan's most startling statues: the monk Kuya with six tiny Amida Buddhas emerging from his mouth on…
• Rurikoin 瑠璃光院Yase / Sakyo — A seasonal-opening villa temple in Yase whose polished black desk reflects the surrounding maples in perfect symmetry, one of Kyoto's most viral…
• Ryoan-ji 龍安寺Kinugasa / Ukyo — Home of Japan's most famous rock garden: fifteen stones on a rectangle of raked white gravel, arranged so that from any seat on the veranda at least…
• Saiho-ji (Kokedera Moss Temple) 西芳寺 (苔寺)Matsuo / Nishikyo — The legendary Moss Temple: a reservation-only garden of some 120 types of moss carpeting a pond garden by Muso Soseki, visited after a sutra-copying…
• Sanjusangendo 三十三間堂 (蓮華王院)Higashiyama-Shichijo — A 120 m long wooden hall holding 1,001 life-size gilded statues of the thousand-armed Kannon, ranked in rows like a golden army, guarded by 28…
• Sanzen-in 三千院Ohara / Sakyo — Ohara's gem: a moss garden studded with mischievous little stone Jizo, cedar trunks rising from a green carpet, and a 12th-century hall holding a…
• Sennyu-ji Temple 泉涌寺Higashiyama / Tofukuji — The imperial family's ancestral temple, set in a wooded valley below Higashiyama, with a calm, uncrowded atmosphere.
• Shinnyo-do Temple 真正極楽寺 真如堂Okazaki / Yoshida — A Tendai temple on a low hill between Ginkaku-ji and Okazaki, loved for its maples around a three-storey pagoda.
• Shisen-do 詩仙堂Ichijoji / Sakyo — A poet's hermitage of 1641 in northeast Kyoto where you sit on tatami before a white-sand garden clipped with azaleas, listening to the clack of a…
• Shoren-in 青蓮院門跡Higashiyama / Awataguchi — An elegant imperial-lineage temple guarded by giant camphor trees, where you sit on tatami with matcha looking onto a Soami pond garden, and…
• Tenryu-ji 天龍寺Arashiyama — Arashiyama's head Zen temple, with Muso Soseki's 14th-century pond garden that borrows the forested slopes of Arashiyama as its backdrop, and a back…
• To-ji 東寺 (教王護国寺)Minami Ward / Kyoto Station south — The temple with Japan's tallest wooden pagoda, a 55 m five-storey landmark seen from the bullet train, and a 3D mandala of 21 statues in the Kodo…
• Tofuku-ji 東福寺Higashiyama / Tofukuji — A vast Zen temple famous for the Tsutenkyo bridge, a covered wooden walkway above a ravine of 2,000 maples, and for Shigemori Mirei's bold…
• Yoshimine-dera Temple 善峯寺Nishiyama / Oharano — A large hillside temple in Kyoto's western mountains with a 600-year-old spreading pine and wide views over the city.