Fukuoka South · UkihaNo.738★★Open in map →

Chikugo-Yoshii Townscape

— Ukiha's white-plastered merchant streets

localOff the trail — and worth it

A preserved merchant quarter in Ukiha, on the old Bungo highway between Kurume and Hita. After a fire in 1869 the town rebuilt itself in white plaster and tile, and that street front still stands within walking distance of a JR station.

FromHakata Station
~1 hr 30 minJR Kyudai Main Line
Get off atChikugo-Yoshii Station (JR Kyudai Main Line)
On foot
Chikugo-Yoshii Townscape

Directions ↗

The sweet spot

This is a lived-in town, not a preserved stage set, so shops keep their own hours and many of the houses are simply people's homes. It stays quiet for an ordinary reason: it is a short flat quarter you can see on foot, sitting between two better-known draws — the fruit farms and terraced rice fields in the hills above, and Hita over the border in Oita.

Where it is

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What to look for — in walking order

Iigura merchant housesそらみみ / CC BY-SA 4.0

Ukiha Tourist Hall Kuraan old sake warehouse turned information point, with maps and rental electric bicycles
Shirakabe-dorithe white-plastered highway front, shutters and deep tiled eaves along both sides
Iigura merchant housesthe thick-walled fireproof shophouses that give the district its architectural name
Kagamida Yashikian 1863 residence at Wakamiya, the oldest building left standing in the quarter

How to actually get there

Hakata Station → Kurume (JR Kagoshima Line).
Kurume → Chikugo-Yoshii (JR Kyudai Main Line).
Walk north-east from the station to the tourist hall and Shirakabe-dori.
Follow the street east as far as Kagamida Yashiki, then back the same way for the train.

JR to Kurume, then the Kyudai Main Line: Hakata Station →(JR Kagoshima Line)→ Kurume →(JR Kyudai Main Line)→ Chikugo-Yoshii Station. Allow about an hour and a half in total. The Kyudai line is the leg that decides your day: it is a single-track local service and the gaps between trains are long.
Back from Chikugo-Yoshii: The Kyudai line back to Kurume, then the Kagoshima Line to Hakata. Local trains thin out sharply in the evening, so check the departure board when you arrive and fix a return train before you start walking.

Directions from my location (Google Maps) ↗

About the place

Chikugo-Yoshii lies on the plain below the hills of Ukiha, in southern Fukuoka. The old highway runs straight through it as Shirakabe-dori, the white-wall street, with a narrow water channel beside the pavement. The protected area covers 20.7 hectares of that grid and is classed as a zaigo-machi: a market town that grew in open country rather than under a castle. Sake, oil and wax made the merchants here wealthy enough to lend money across the region. The house fronts show it plainly — thick walls faced in white plaster, heavy tiled roofs, and shutters built to keep fire out rather than to look handsome.

How to enjoy it

Begin at the tourist hall, which holds the district map and rents electric bicycles. The street itself needs no more than an hour on foot, and morning light along the white fronts is the best of the day. If you take a bicycle, the same trip stretches to a half day: the fruit farms and terraced fields start where the plain runs into the hills, a few kilometres south.

Background & history

The town grew as a post station on the Bungo highway, which linked the castle town of Kurume with the shogunal territory of Hita in Oita. Irrigation cut across the plain turned the surrounding fields into rice land, and the settlement became the market for what they produced. A great fire in 1869 destroyed the thatched houses, and the merchants rebuilt in fireproof plaster and tile — the look the town still carries. In December 1996 the quarter was selected as a national Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings.

Before you go

Cash: Walking the district costs nothing and the street is open at any hour. The preserved houses that admit visitors are municipal facilities with their own opening days. Carry cash for the shops and the cafes.
Good to know: Kagamida Yashiki has been closed since April 2026 for a seismic survey, confirmed at the time of writing; the street and the exteriors are unaffected. The quarter is flat and paved throughout. There is no evening lighting scheme, so the white walls want daylight.
Another way: By car, leave the Oita Expressway at Haki IC; the tourist hall is about ten minutes away and there is a municipal car park nearby.
After you get off: From Chikugo-Yoshii Station walk north-east for about ten minutes. The highway front and the tourist hall are straight ahead.