What it is
The district between the river and the Yasaka shrine at the east end of Shijō, built around the approach to it. Two-storey wooden houses with slatted kōshi lattice fronts, hung lanterns, and almost no daylight interest — it is an evening place.
⭐ In Kyoto they are geiko, and their apprentices are maiko. ‘Geisha’ is the general Japanese word; the Kyoto ones are not called that here.
The two streets
Hanamikōji runs south from Shijō and is the one in every photograph: a straight lane of dark timber frontages. ⭐ Shirakawa, north of Shijō, is the better one — the same architecture but along a willow-lined canal, and far quieter.
⚠️ About photographs
This is a residential and working district, and the problem of visitors photographing women in the street became serious enough that photography is prohibited on some of the private lanes, with signs saying so.
⭐ The rule to carry: the streets are public, the people are not. A geiko or maiko walking to an appointment is going to work, and blocking her path for a picture is the behaviour the signs exist because of. Read the signs at the mouth of each lane — they are the authority, not this page.
