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Kinkaku-ji (金閣寺, Temple of the Golden Pavilion^?), also known as Rokuon-ji (鹿苑寺, Deer Garden Temple^?), is a Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan. The garden complex is an excellent example of Muromachi period garden design. It is designated as a National Special Historic Site and a National Special Landscape, and it is one of 17 locations comprising the Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto World Heritage Site. It is also one of the most popular buildings in Japan, attracting a large number of visitors annually. It has also been made widely familiar as being featured in a photograph in the desktop picture art of Apple's OS X computer operating system, labeled simply as "Golden Palace".

Kyoto (京都市, Kyōto-shi^?, "Capital City") (Japanese pronunciation: [kʲoːto] ( listen)) is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.

Along with Shinto shrines, Buddhist temples are the most numerous, famous, and important religious buildings in Japan. The Japanese word for a Buddhist temple is tera (寺^?), and the same kanji also has the pronunciation ji, so temple names often end with -ji or -dera. There is also another ending, -in (院^?, normally used for minor temples). Famous temples as Enryaku-ji, Kiyomizu-dera, and Kōtoku-in illustrate the naming patterns.

As in the case of a Shinto shrine, a Buddhist temple is not primarily a place of worship: its most important buildings are used for the safekeeping of sacred objects, and are not accessible to worshipers. There are specialized buildings for certain rites, but these are usually open only to a limited number of participants. Religious mass gatherings in the style of Christian churches do not take place with regularity and are not held inside the temple. If many people are involved in a ceremony, it will assume a festive character and will be held outdoors.

The UNESCO World Heritage Site Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto (Kyoto, Uji and Otsu Cities) encompasses 17 locations in Japan. The locations are in three cities: Kyoto and Uji in Kyoto Prefecture; and Ōtsu in Shiga Prefecture. Of the monuments, 13 are Buddhist temples; 3 are Shinto shrines; and one is a castle. The properties include 38 buildings designated by the Japanese Government as National Treasures, 160 properties designated as Important Cultural Properties, 8 gardens designated as Special Places of Scenic Beauty, and 4 designated as Places of Scenic Beauty. UNESCO listed the site as World Heritage in 1994.

Japan ⁱ/dʒəˈpæn/ (Japanese: 日本 Nihon or Nippon; formally 日本国  Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku, literally, the State of Japan) is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters that make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin", which is why Japan is sometimes referred to as the "Land of the Rising Sun".