Munakata Taisha Okitsu-gu Yohaisho

Quick facts

Address

1293 Oshima, Munakata, Fukuoka

About this place

Munakata Taisha’s Okitsu-gu Yohaisho stands on the island of Oshima in Munakata, Fukuoka. The hall it faces, Okitsu-gu, stands on Okinoshima, out in the middle of the Genkai Sea; its deity is Tagorihime and both its main hall and worship hall date from 1932. The whole of Okinoshima is a national natural monument and a national historic site. No one lives there; entry is forbidden to all but priests; those who land must perform purification in the sea; and the rule that not one tree, one blade of grass or one stone may be carried off is still strictly kept. Okinoshima is closed to the general public, and no one but a priest may cross to it.

Origin and history

The hall it faces, Okitsu-gu, stands on Okinoshima, out in the middle of the Genkai Sea. Its deity is Tagorihime, and both its main hall and its worship hall date from 1932.

The whole of Okinoshima is a national natural monument and a national historic site.

No one lives there; entry is forbidden to all but priests; those who land must perform purification in the sea; and the rule that not one tree, one blade of grass or one stone may be carried off is still strictly kept. Okinoshima is closed to the general public, and no one but a priest may cross to it.

What it is locally associated with

• Power spot

  Worship across the water

  Okinoshima is closed to the general public and no one but a priest may cross to it, so Okitsu-gu is worshipped from this hall on Oshima.

  documented history

• What people do here

  Not one tree, one blade of grass, one stone

  No one lives there, entry is forbidden to all but priests, those who land must purify themselves in the sea, and nothing at all may be carried off.

  documented history

• Origin

  Okitsu-gu and Tagorihime

  The hall it faces stands on Okinoshima; its deity is Tagorihime and both its halls date from 1932.

  documented history

This is a place for looking at a place you cannot reach. Okinoshima, where Okitsu-gu stands, has no inhabitants and is closed to everyone but priests; those who land must purify themselves in the sea, and not one tree, one blade of grass or one stone may be carried away — rules Munakata Taisha records as still strictly kept. This hall on Oshima is the nearest a visitor can stand. Nowhere else on this list exists because of an inaccessibility.

Munakata Taisha is divided across three halls: Hetsu-gu on the mainland, Nakatsu-gu on Oshima, and Okitsu-gu on Okinoshima. The first two are on this list already; the third can only be met like this, across water. Of the three goddesses, Okitsu-gu holds Tagorihime.

The whole island is a national natural monument and a national historic site. The Hetsu-gu page records that some eighty thousand national treasures excavated from it confirm traces of state ritual. What came off an island nothing may be taken from is now counted as a number.

Okitsu-gu’s main hall and worship hall both date from 1932. The page names no benefit, so this page carries no tag for what may be prayed for.

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. 沖津宮 — Munakata Taisha (accessed 2026-08-15)