Munakata Grand shrine (宗像大社）

Munakata Taisha or Munakata Grand Shrine（宗像大社）is located in Munakata city, Fukuoka. It is comprised of three shrines in different places; Okitsu-miya shrine in Okinoshima island, 50km off in the north from mainland of Kyushu, Nakatsu-miya shrine in Oshima island, which is connected by ferry with mainland, and Hetsu-miya shrine in mainland Kyushu.

In 2017, Okinoshima island and the shrine including related facilities are enlisted as UNESCO's world heritage.

Divine three sisters of Munakata
Three female deities (Munakata divine sisters：宗像三女神) are enshrined in each of the three shrine; the first-eldest "Tagori-hime" in Okitsu-miya, the second-eldest "Tagitsu-hime" in Nakatsu-miya and the third-and-youngest "Ichikishima-hime" in Hetsu-miya.

In ancient articles including Kojiki (古事記 "Ancient matter"as the first chronicle supervised by the imperial court) and Nihon-shoki（日本書紀 "The first nationally authorized chronicle of Japan), the three sisters, daughters of Amaterasu (the great ancestor of the Emperor), were sent to Munakata by their mother's order to protect maritime safety in Japan and help the imperial court run the nation smoothly since Munakata was a port polity in northern part of Kyushu, where was exposed to threats from China and Korea but also convenient to oversee maritime trades with those countries.

Their status as marine guardians evolved into "guardians of traffic", so nowadays may car drivers often visit the shrine to pray for safe driving.

Okinoshima and the shrine
In 2017, UNESCO enlisted the shrine and its "sacred Okinoshima island" for which it highly worships as a place where the deity inhabits. ICOMOS, an advisory entity for UNESCO, firstly accredited historical values of Okinoshima, exemplified by numerous excavated archaeological findings of tributes for deities in search of maritime safety in the 5th-9th century; Okinoshima is located 50km off from the mainland Kyushu and in between Kyushu and Korean Peninsula, so it may have worked as a satellite for the maritime trade at a time when the religious worship took place inside the island.

Due to its religious manner, Munakata Grand Shrine restricts the visitors to the island even after UNESCO's enlistment: no women is allowed to enter, only priests working in the shrine or men with special permission can enter. (perhaps because the deity is a female who loves men, women may be haunted in the island.) On top of that, the shrine argues that nothing can be taken from the island (or the deity may haunt you.)

Battle for other spots
On the other hand, ICOMOS argued in its interim report that the shrine's spots other than Okinoshima such as Nakatsu-miya and Hetsu-miya were valued based only on Japan's national/political interests in the ancient time, so they didn't live up to criteria of the world heritage. Namely, ICOMOS concluded that those spots should not be included in the heritage.

To convince UNESCO to include those spots in the heritage, officers from government, municipal office of Munakata and the shrine's staff cooperated. On the day of the world heritage conference in Poland in July 2017, the shrine's head priest went to the conference for lobbying.

As the result of their efforts, UNESCO finally registered the whole spots including the three shrines of Munakata as the world heritage.