Kokura Gion Yasaka Shrine

Quick facts

Address

2-2 Jonai, Kokurakita-ku, Kitakyushu, Fukuoka

About this place

Kokura Gion Yasaka Shrine stands within Kokura Castle in Kokurakita-ku, Kitakyushu, Fukuoka. It was founded in 1617 by Hosokawa Tadaoki and is honoured as Kokura Gion Yasaka Shrine, guardian of the whole province of Buzen. It has more than four hundred years of history. Its benefits are the warding off of misfortune, the tying of bonds, prosperity in business and safety in traffic. Weddings before the deity and the seven-five-three and first shrine visits are held here.

Origin and history

It was founded in 1617 by Hosokawa Tadaoki and is honoured as Kokura Gion Yasaka Shrine, guardian of the whole province of Buzen.

It has more than four hundred years of history and now stands within the grounds of Kokura Castle.

Its benefits are the warding off of misfortune, the tying of bonds, prosperity in business and safety in traffic.

What it is locally associated with

• Origin

  Founded by Hosokawa Tadaoki in 1617

  It was founded in 1617 by Hosokawa Tadaoki and honoured as guardian of the whole province of Buzen.

  documented history

• Power spotProtection & SafetyLove & RomanceMoney & Prosperity

  From misfortune to traffic safety

  Its benefits are the warding off of misfortune, the tying of bonds, prosperity in business and safety in traffic.

  documented history

• What people do here

  Standing inside a castle

  It has more than four hundred years of history and now stands within the grounds of Kokura Castle.

  documented history

The man who founded this shrine appears at another shrine in the same city. Shinozaki Hachiman Shrine in Kokurakita holds a ridge tag of the third month of 1617 naming Hosokawa Tadaoki, lord of the two Bungo provinces, as the great patron of its main hall. This shrine’s founding is also 1617. The same man, in the same year, at two shrines about twenty minutes apart.

Its title is guardian of the whole province of Buzen — a shrine positioned as protector of an entire province, now standing inside a castle. On castles and shrines, this list also holds Kego Shrine in Fukuoka, which was moved out of the way so a castle could be built. A shrine displaced by a castle and a shrine standing within one, in the same prefecture.

The benefits are warding off misfortune, the tying of bonds, prosperity in business, safety in traffic — all four close to the daily life of people living in a town.

The shrine’s page does not name its enshrined deities, and this page does not either.

Related guides

• How to visit a shrine or temple in JapanThe country-wide basics: purifying at the water basin, the two-bows-two-claps-one-bow form at shrines, and what temples do instead.
• What a "power spot" actually isA modern Japanese coinage, not a traditional religious category. Where the word came from, what it does and does not claim, and why this site uses it anyway.
• Shrine or temple?A shrine is Shinto and a temple is Buddhist, and you can usually tell at the gate. Why the line is cleaner on paper than on the ground, and what a government order in 1868 has to do with it.
• Omamori, ema, omikuji and goshuinThe four things you are most likely to receive, write, draw or be given at a shrine or temple, what each is actually for, and the one of them people most often get wrong.

Sources

1. 小倉祇園 八坂神社 — Kokura Gion Yasaka Shrine (accessed 2026-08-15)