If you are asking which month is coldest in Shirakawa-go, the Japan Meteorological Agency’s normals for its Shirakawa station give January a monthly mean of minus 1.0 °C against February’s minus 0.8 °C, so January is colder on the average, while February is colder on the mean daily minimum, minus 5.0 °C against minus 4.4 °C. Snow is heaviest in January too, at 340 cm of the annual 972 cm.
The second thing to know is that the World Heritage property is not one village. The Agency for Cultural Affairs lists it as Historic Villages of Shirakawa-go and Gokayama, inscribed in 1995 and recorded for two prefectures, Gifu and Toyama. The World Heritage Center run jointly by the two local authorities states that the property consists of three mountain villages: Ogimachi, Ainokura and Suganuma. Only Ogimachi lies in Shirakawa Village; Ainokura and Suganuma are in Nanto City, over the prefectural border in Toyama.
The property is three settlements, and two of them are not in Shirakawa
The Agency for Cultural Affairs publishes a numbered list of Japan’s World Heritage properties. Shirakawa-go and Gokayama is entry 6 on that list, recorded as Gifu and Toyama, cultural, 1995. The list runs to 27 entries, the last recorded for 2026, and nine of the 27 name two or more prefectures. That count of nine is this article’s own reading of the table, not a figure the agency prints.
The World Heritage Center page on the extent of the property is specific about administration. Under today’s municipal boundaries, Ogimachi belongs to Shirakawa Village in Gifu, while Ainokura and Suganuma belong to Nanto City in Toyama. Each of the three settlements is ringed by a Type I buffer zone, described on that page as an area where changes to the existing state are tightly restricted, and the whole of that is enclosed by a wider Type II buffer zone covering all three districts. The legal instruments differ by prefecture and by zone. Both of Ogimachi’s buffer zones rest on Shirakawa Village’s own landscape ordinance, under the Landscape Act. For Ainokura and Suganuma the Type I zone rests on a national historic site designation and the Gokayama prefectural natural park, while the Type II zone rests on Nanto City’s own Gokayama landscape ordinance, which the page marks as an ordinance of the city’s own making rather than one under a national act.
The three districts were selected eighteen years apart, not together
The three settlements are protected under the same mechanism, the Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings, which the World Heritage Center dates to a July 1975 amendment of the Act on Protection of Cultural Properties. They were not selected at the same time. The agency’s list of preservation districts gives Shirakawa Village Ogimachi a selection date of 4 September 1976, and gives both Nanto City Ainokura and Nanto City Suganuma 21 December 1994. That is eighteen years and 108 days between the two dates, by this article’s own arithmetic.
Ogimachi was one of seven districts selected on that single day in September 1976, the first group on the agency’s list, and the only one of the seven classified as a mountain settlement. Eleven of the 130 districts on the current list carry that classification, and Ogimachi’s date is the earliest of the eleven by seventeen years; the next is a district in Kyoto Prefecture selected on 8 December 1993. Both the count of eleven and the count of seven are this article’s own tallies of the table.
The three districts in the agency’s own columns
Areas below are the agency’s figures in hectares. Household counts and the number of gassho style houses standing inside each preservation district come from the World Heritage Center’s page for that settlement, which gives the household figures as of 2023.
| District | Municipality | Selected | Area (ha) | Households (2023) | Gassho houses in district |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shirakawa Village Ogimachi | Shirakawa Village, Gifu | 4 September 1976 | 45.6 | 128 | 59 |
| Nanto City Ainokura | Nanto City, Toyama | 21 December 1994 | 18.0 | 16 | 20 |
| Nanto City Suganuma | Nanto City, Toyama | 21 December 1994 | 4.4 | 5 | 9 |
The three areas add to 68.0 hectares and the three house counts to 88, both this article’s own additions. The Ogimachi page notes that a temple’s priests’ quarters inside the district is built the same way without being a dwelling, which takes its figure to 60 if counted. The same pages give full preserved-item totals, which are larger than the house counts because they also take in structures such as torii, lanterns, stone walls and steps and environmental items such as groves, trees, hedges and watercourses: 136 items in Ogimachi of which 109 are thatched, 80 in Ainokura of which 23 are thatched, and 32 in Suganuma of which 13 are thatched. Elevations differ as well, at about 500 m for Ogimachi, about 400 m for Ainokura and about 330 m for Suganuma.
The household figures have changed in different directions. The Ogimachi page cites an 1876 record of 99 households and about 700 people, calling Ogimachi the central settlement of Shirakawa Village; the 23 villages that formed Shirakawa Village are an 1889 figure on the same page, not a ranking of the 1876 households. The Ainokura page cites an 1875 record of 47 households, fourth largest of the 25 settlements in the village it then belonged to. The Suganuma page cites an 1889 record of 13 households, ninth of the 19 settlements in its own former village. Ogimachi has gained households since those records; the other two have lost them.
One half rethatches a whole roof slope, the other a sixth of one
The World Heritage Center keeps a page on the differences between the two halves of the property, and it states that the largest difference between the two lies in how the roofs are thatched. In Shirakawa-go a single slope of a roof is rethatched in one operation by a work party the page numbers at more than a hundred people, and the aim is to make that roof last 40 to 60 years, with the page noting cases of 80. The thatch is laid about 80 cm thick to achieve it.
In Gokayama the same slope is divided and rethatched in two to four pieces, a third of a side at a time, which comes to six pieces across a whole roof, and the cycle is about ten years. The thatch there is laid 60 to 70 cm thick, because a new section has to match the thickness of the sections beside it. The page attributes the short cycle to the use of the stripped thatch as fertiliser on mulberry fields and farmland, and notes a jointing technique used in Gokayama that Shirakawa-go has no need of. It also records that in Shirakawa-go even a settlement of seven or eight households calls in neighbouring settlements rather than splitting the slope.
The entrances differ too. The page states that gable-end entrances predominate in Gokayama and eaves-side entrances in Shirakawa-go, that there are exceptions in both directions, and that the reason is not firmly established.
Which month is coldest depends on which column you read
The Japan Meteorological Agency publishes climate normals for a station named Shirakawa in Gifu. All eight elements there are calculated over 1991 to 2020, 30 years of data, so the columns can be read against each other. The monthly mean is minus 1.0 °C in January against minus 0.8 °C in February. The mean daily maximum is 2.8 °C in January against 3.8 °C in February. The mean daily minimum is minus 4.4 °C in January against minus 5.0 °C in February, so February is the colder month on that one column.
Snow carries the largest numbers on the page. The annual total depth of snowfall is 972 cm, made up of 340 cm in January, 251 cm in February, 149 cm in March, 19 cm in April, 1 cm in May, 12 cm in November and 201 cm in December, with June to October at zero. Those seven monthly figures add to 973 cm, one centimetre more than the printed annual figure; normals are computed separately for each period, so the two are not required to agree, and the addition is this article’s own. Greatest snow depth is a separate column: 148 cm in January, 173 cm in February, 125 cm in March, 32 cm in April, 5 cm in November and 84 cm in December, with zero in May and from June to October, yet the annual row prints 177 cm, higher than any single month. Annual precipitation is 2,458.2 mm and annual sunshine 1,417.8 hours.
The agency measures only one half of the property
There is a second station, named Gokayama, in Toyama. Its normals page prints a statistical period of 2004 to 2020 and 17 years of data for precipitation, and for the other seven elements it prints three slashes with a data-years figure of 0. Temperature, wind, sunshine, snowfall depth and greatest snow depth carry no figures on that page. Annual precipitation at Gokayama is 2,899.4 mm against 2,458.2 mm at Shirakawa, but the two figures are not on the same footing: one is a 30-year normal and the other a 17-year normal over a different span, so this article does not subtract them.
Shirakawa Village itself counts 1,452 residents
Shirakawa Village publishes a population block on its administrative top page, which sits one click in from the site front page. As of 1 October 2026 it gives 710 men and 742 women, 1,452 people in total, in 616 households, with an ageing rate of 34.02 per cent. The monthly change shown beside each figure is plus one man, plus two women, plus three people and plus three households. Women outnumber men by 32, and the figures work out at 2.36 people per household; both of those are this article’s own arithmetic. The same page carries an event notice dated 11 March 2025 recording that a logo was produced for the thirtieth anniversary of the World Heritage inscription, which places that inscription in 1995 from the village’s side as well.
For what changes in Ogimachi between a day visit and an overnight stay, see Shirakawa-go as a day trip or an overnight stay.
Sources Checked
Agency for Cultural Affairs — list of Japan’s World Heritage properties
Confirmed that Historic Villages of Shirakawa-go and Gokayama is entry 6, recorded for Gifu and Toyama, cultural, 1995; that the list runs to 27 entries with the last recorded for 2026; and that nine entries name two or more prefectures.
https://www.bunka.go.jp/seisaku/bunkazai/shokai/sekai_isan/ichiran/
Agency for Cultural Affairs — list of Important Preservation Districts for Groups of Traditional Buildings
Confirmed 130 districts with columns for number, prefecture, district name, type, selection date, selection criterion and area; Shirakawa Village Ogimachi, mountain settlement, 4 September 1976, 45.6 ha; Nanto City Ainokura, mountain settlement, 21 December 1994, 18.0 ha; Nanto City Suganuma, mountain settlement, 21 December 1994, 4.4 ha; that 4 September 1976 is the earliest date on the list and that seven districts share it; and that eleven districts are classified as mountain settlements, the next earliest after Ogimachi being a Kyoto Prefecture district dated 8 December 1993.
https://www.bunka.go.jp/seisaku/bunkazai/shokai/hozonchiku/judenken_ichiran.html
Historic Villages of Shirakawa-go and Gokayama World Heritage Center — extent of the heritage site
Confirmed that the property consists of the three mountain settlements Ogimachi, Ainokura and Suganuma; that Ogimachi is in Shirakawa Village, Gifu and the other two in Nanto City, Toyama; the Type I and Type II buffer zones with their definitions; that both of Ogimachi’s zones rest on Shirakawa Village’s landscape ordinance under the Landscape Act, that the Type I zone for Ainokura and Suganuma rests on a national historic site designation and the Gokayama prefectural natural park, and that their Type II zone rests on Nanto City’s Gokayama landscape ordinance marked as the city’s own; the three preservation district names with selection dates of 4 September 1976, 21 December 1994 and 21 December 1994; and the July 1975 amendment that created the traditional building group category.
https://whc-shirakawa-goandgokayama.jp/heritage_range/
Historic Villages of Shirakawa-go and Gokayama World Heritage Center — Ogimachi
Confirmed 128 households as of 2023 and 59 gassho style houses with a temple building taking that figure to 60, an 1876 record of 99 households and about 700 people described as the central settlement of Shirakawa Village, with 23 of 41 villages forming Shirakawa Village in 1889, an elevation of about 500 m, and a preserved-item table totalling 136 items of which 109 are thatched.
https://whc-shirakawa-goandgokayama.jp/three_villages/ogimachi/
Historic Villages of Shirakawa-go and Gokayama World Heritage Center — Ainokura
Confirmed 16 households as of 2023 and 20 gassho style houses, an 1875 record of 47 households ranked fourth of 25 settlements, an elevation of about 400 m, and a preserved-item table totalling 80 items of which 23 are thatched.
https://whc-shirakawa-goandgokayama.jp/three_villages/ainokura/
Historic Villages of Shirakawa-go and Gokayama World Heritage Center — Suganuma
Confirmed 5 households as of 2023 and 9 gassho style houses, an 1889 record of 13 households ranked ninth of 19 settlements, an elevation of about 330 m, and a preserved-item table totalling 32 items of which 13 are thatched.
https://whc-shirakawa-goandgokayama.jp/three_villages/suganuma/
Historic Villages of Shirakawa-go and Gokayama World Heritage Center — differences between Shirakawa-go and Gokayama
Confirmed the one-slope rethatching with a work party of more than a hundred and a 40 to 60 year cycle with cases of 80 in Shirakawa-go, with thatch about 80 cm thick; the division into two to four pieces, a third of a side at a time and six pieces per roof, on a cycle of about ten years with thatch 60 to 70 cm thick in Gokayama; the use of stripped thatch as fertiliser; the jointing technique peculiar to Gokayama; the practice of calling in neighbouring settlements in Shirakawa-go; and the predominance of gable-end entrances in Gokayama and eaves-side entrances in Shirakawa-go with exceptions both ways and the reason not established.
https://whc-shirakawa-goandgokayama.jp/learn/difference/
Japan Meteorological Agency — climate normals, Shirakawa (Gifu)
Confirmed a statistical period of 1991 to 2020 and 30 data years for all eight elements; January mean minus 1.0 °C and February minus 0.8 °C; January daily maximum 2.8 °C and February 3.8 °C; January daily minimum minus 4.4 °C and February minus 5.0 °C; monthly snowfall depths of 340, 251, 149, 19, 1, 12 and 201 cm with an annual figure of 972 cm; greatest snow depths of 148, 173, 125, 32, 5 and 84 cm with an annual figure of 177 cm; annual precipitation 2,458.2 mm; annual sunshine 1,417.8 hours.
https://www.data.jma.go.jp/stats/etrn/view/nml_amd_ym.php?prec_no=52&block_no=1306
Japan Meteorological Agency — climate normals, Gokayama (Toyama)
Confirmed a statistical period of 2004 to 2020 with 17 data years for precipitation only, three slashes and 0 data years for the other seven elements, and annual precipitation of 2,899.4 mm.
https://www.data.jma.go.jp/stats/etrn/view/nml_amd_ym.php?prec_no=55&block_no=1553
Shirakawa Village — administrative top page
Confirmed 710 men, 742 women, 1,452 people, 616 households and an ageing rate of 34.02 per cent as of 1 October 2026, with monthly changes of plus one, plus two, plus three and plus three; and an event notice dated 11 March 2025 about a logo for the thirtieth anniversary of the World Heritage inscription.
https://www.vill.shirakawa.lg.jp/1.htm
Last updated: October 2026
