Chiran Samurai Gardens — Edo Townscape Preserved

Chiran was an outer castle town of the Satsuma Domain, where samurai families built residences along a preserved street that remains largely intact. Seven samurai gardens (武家庭園) are open to the public — dry landscape gardens (karesansui) using volcanic rock, trimmed hedges, and borrowed scenery techniques to create miniature landscapes within small plots.

The gardens were designed for meditation and tea ceremony, using the surrounding mountains as 'borrowed scenery' (shakkei) — incorporating distant peaks into the garden composition.