To protect Japan's cultural heritage, the country's government selects through the Agency for Cultural Affairs important items and designates them as Cultural Properties under the Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties. Designated items are classified in a number of categories, one of which is Monuments . This category includes historic locations such as shell mounds, ancient tombs, sites of palaces, sites of forts or castles, monumental dwelling houses and other sites of high historical or scientific value; gardens, bridges, gorges, mountains, and other places of great scenic beauty; and natural features such as animals, plants, and geological or mineral formations of high scientific value.The government further designates significant monuments classifying them in three categories: Historic Sites , Places of Scenic Beauty , and Natural Monuments . Items of particularly high significance receive higher classifications: Special Historic Sites , Special Places of Scenic Beauty , and Special Natural Monuments respectively. As of November 17, 2017 there are 1,027 Natural Monuments, 1805 Historic Sites, 410 Places of Scenic Beauty, 75 Special Natural Monuments, 36 Special Places of Scenic Beauty and 62 Special Historic Sites.Since a single item can fall under more than one of these categories, the total number of sites is less than the sum of designations.
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