Gassho-style houses in Gokayama © The Yomiuri Shimbun

This image shows Shirakawa-go and Gokayama as observed on October 22, 1992, by HRV-XS sensor onboard French SPOT satellite. Upper and lower enlargements show Gokayama and Shirakawa-go, respectively. The gassho-style villages in the Ogimachi District (Shirakawa-mura, Gifu Prefecture), Ainokura District and Suganuma District (both located in Higashi-Tonami-Gun, Toyama Prefecture) were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1995. In Ogimachi village, about 110 gassho-style houses with steeply pitched, thatched roofs stand next to each other at a foot of the mountain. With rice fields, green fields and streams all over the place, the village reminds us of long-ago Japan's rural scenery. Ainokura and Suganuma villages used to be so isolated that no one is permitted to enter because gunpowder ingredient called Ensho was produced and lawbreakers were also exiled by order of Kaga Clan. These historic villages are still active communities. The gassho-style houses are maintained not only as valuable cultural heritage but as local residents' precious place of living.