Nishi Hongan-ji is the older of the two Hongan-ji headquarters and is the principal seat of the Honganji branch of Jōdo Shinshū. The temple was moved to its current site in 1591 on the orders of the warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi; in 1602 his successor Tokugawa Ieyasu deliberately split the sect by granting a separate plot a few hundred metres to the east — the origin of the rival Higashi Hongan-ji.
The temple's main Goeidō and Amidadō halls are among the largest and finest examples of late-sixteenth-century Buddhist architecture in Japan. A series of separately ticketed sub-buildings on the south side — the Karamon ("Chinese gate"), the Hiunkaku Pavilion (open only by special arrangement) and the Shoin reception halls — are among the most lavishly decorated Momoyama-era interiors in existence and reward a slower visit. Inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of the Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto.