The Great Cedar of Kyuu Hachiman Shrine

Two shrines in this one farming district hold cedars whose measured girths differ by a single centimetre: 5.56 metres here, 5.55 up the road at Okayama Hachiman. Nothing connects them except the habit that produced both, which is the oldest reason large trees survive in Japan. Shrine ground is not cleared, not thinned and not sold for timber, so the trees on it keep whatever start they were given while the hillside around them is cut on a cycle of decades. This cedar came through the national giant-tree survey of 2000 in good health, and an independent catalogue of village giants lists it at 5.6 metres, near enough to count as confirmation rather than argument. No age has ever been published for it, which is normal here: the register measures what a tape can settle and leaves the years alone. Kyuu Hachiman stands in Shimotakeni, in the cold upland half of Higashi-Hiroshima, with no station and no bus stop within reach. The coordinate comes from the register itself and lands on the district rather than the precinct, so treat the pin as a neighbourhood, find the shrine approach, and the tree is the one you cannot miss once you are through it.