Japan is a country full of amazing art, and not all of it’s in art galleries. In every town, we have delighted in finding unique manhole covers, composed of beautiful ironwork, some painted, some not. They really brighten up dull pavements.
Apparently, this phenomenon started in 1985, when a high ranking bureaucrat in the construction industry came up with the idea of allowing municipalities to design their own manhole covers. Soon the obsession took off and municipalities were competing with each other to create the best design.
According to the Japan Society of Manhole Covers (yes, such a thing does exist), there are almost 6,000 artistic manhole covers throughout Japan today.




I love this idea. I think it could really catch in in the UK if people knew about it.
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At last – this is the posting I was waiting for. These are surely the world’s most beautiful manhole covers and there is definitely a film documentary to be made about this subject
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