Kamakura is a city located in Kanagawa, Japan, about 50 kilometres (31 mi) south-south-west of Tokyo. It used to be also called Renpu. Although Kamakura proper is today rather small, it is sometimes considered a former de facto capital of Japan as the seat of the Shogunate and of the Regency during the Kamakura Period.
Kamakura has many historically significant Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, some of them, like Sugimoto-dera, over 1,200 years old. Kōtoku-in, with its monumental outdoor bronze statue of Amida Buddha, is the most famous. A 15th century tsunami destroyed the temple that once housed the Great Buddha, but the statue survived and has remained outdoors ever since. This iconic Daibutsu is arguably amongst the few images which have come to represent Japan in the world's collective imagination. Kamakura also hosts the so-called Five Great Zen Temples (the Kamakura Gozan).
The architectural heritage of Kamakura is almost unmatched, and the city has proposed some of its historic sites for inclusion in UNESCO's World Heritage Sites list. It must be remembered, however, that much of the city was devastated in the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923 and that many temples and shrines, however founded centuries ago, are physically just careful replicas.
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