This grand tutelary shrine of Hakata is widely known and people warmly refer to it as “Okushida-san.”

It is dedicated to the gods of Ohatanushi-no-mikoto, Amaterasu-omikami and Susanowo-no-mikoto. According to tradition, in 757, when Emperor Koken was in the reign and Tairano Kiyomori designated Hakata port as a base of Japan-China trade, the shrine was built on the emperor’s order to share a god with Kushida shrine of Ise province (the present Mie prefecture).
In 1585 during the Hakata restoration, Toyotomi Hideyoshi contributed to rebuild the current main building of the shrine.

Hakata Gion Yamakasa festival, widely known as a summer feature of Hakata, is dedicated to this shrine. In the shrine yard, a great symbolic gingko tree grows with two monumental tablets of the Mongolian invasion on its foot.