[H-CG19] International comparison of landscape appreciation and recreation

[HCG19-04] International comparison on the visual landscape evaluation of the Meiji-Jingu shrine

*Yusuke Mizuuchi¹, Kazuhiko W. Nakamura² (1.Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 2.Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo)

Keywords:landscape aesthetic, scenec beauty, shrine, photography, geotag

Forests have long served as sacred places for the worship and reflection of religious beliefs. They are called sacred forests and are found all over the world. The forest of Meiji-Jingu shrine is one of a sacred forest, however, it has a unique character that the forest was being afforested for shrine establishment, so the forest history has only a hundred years. In addition, the forest was afforested in 1920 with the aim of creating a sublime forest one century later. Mizuuchi & Nakamura (2021) showed that the current forest was evaluated as a sublime landscape. However, the previous study was conducted with Japanese visitors as subjects, so there is space for discussion regarding international comparison. In this study, we conducted a visual landscape assessment using a combination of data collected from geotagged visitor employed photography and questionnaires. The subjects were seven foreigners. We revealed how foreigners evaluated the forest of Meiji-jingu shrine, whether the forest evaluated as sublime or not, and which landscape elements made foreigners feel sublime.