History
Before Kyoto, there was Nara. In 710, the imperial court established Japan’s first permanent capital at Heijo-kyo, on the site of modern Nara City, ending centuries of the practice of moving the capital with each new emperor. For 74 years, Nara was the political and religious center of Japan — the period that gave the era its name, and produced some of the country’s oldest and most significant Buddhist art and architecture, before the court relocated first briefly to Nagaoka and then, in 794, to Kyoto.
Nara and the wider world
Nara’s international reach during that period was genuinely remarkable. The city functioned as the eastern terminus of the Silk Road, and Todai- ji’s Shosoin Repository — an imperial storehouse built in the 8th century — still holds thousands of objects donated by Emperor Shomu, including glassware, textiles, and musical instruments whose origins trace back through Tang-dynasty China to Persia, India, and Central Asia. When Todai-ji’s Great Buddha was completed in 752, its “eye-opening” dedication ceremony was reportedly attended by monks and envoys from as far as India and the Silk Road states — an extraordinary gathering for the 8th century, and a strong indication of how connected Nara-period Japan already was to the rest of Asia.
Neighbors: Nara and Kyoto
Nara’s relationship with Kyoto follows a pattern that repeats across Japanese history: an older capital ceding formal power to a newer one while retaining outsized cultural and religious weight — the same dynamic that would later play out between Kyoto and Tokyo after 1868.
Getting there and getting around
Nara is reached from Kyoto or Osaka by direct train in 35-50 minutes; there’s no shinkansen stop in Nara itself. Central Nara, including Todai- ji, Nara Park, and Kasuga Taisha, is compact enough to cover on foot.
