Fukiya is a district in Takahashi City, Okayama, located on a plateau 550 m above sea level. It’s known for its Edo period buildings uniformly painted with bengara ferric oxide, with reddish-brown roof tiles. From around the middle of the Edo period, the area developed as a mining town centred on the Fukiya Copper Mine. The craftsmen who smelt and cast metal, and their workplaces were called fukiya. At its peak, the copper mine employed 1,200 workers. From around the end of the Edo period to the Meiji period, the area flourished as Japan’s only major producer of bengara, made by oxidizing and reducing iron sulphide ores along with copper ore. It was mainly used for painting porcelain and lacquerware, and as a preservative for the exterior walls of shrines and temples. The stately bengara-coloured merchant houses with latticed fronts reflect the prosperity of earlier times.

The town is dedicated to the preservation and transmission of traditional festivals such as Bitchū Kagura, Shintō music and dance, and the oldest wooden elementary school in Japan, is located here. Several of the traditional old buildings are now museums.