The Tsujunkyo Bridge was built in 1854 by Futa Yasunosuke, the So Shoya (village head), or town mayor in present-day terms, of then-Yabe Town. He constructed the bridge to supply water to the Shiraito Plateau, where the people were suffering from a water shortage.
It is Japan’s largest stone-arch aqueduct bridge and the only one among stone-arch bridges with the ability to discharge water. This bridge, measuring 78m in length and 21.3m high, is packed with master techniques the stoneworkers of Higo possessed. It gets its water from the Sasahara River’s upper stream approximately 6km away. The bridge is part of an aqueduct system that runs a total length of nearly 30km and can irrigate an area of around 100 hectares. The upper portion of the bridge houses three stone pipes for water, and, to this day, it picks up water using the inverted siphon principle and irrigates nearby fields. The powerful discharging of water is performed to clear the pipes of any sediment stuck within.
The Tsujunkyo Bridge was designated a national treasure in September 2023, the first civil engineering structure in Japan to receive that recognition.