This paper was intended as an investigation of gentry’s tombs during the Japanese period in Taiwan. The purpose here was to explore a little further into tombs imply that social usages of contemporary and cultural characteristics. The target cases were gentry of the Lin family of Wu-Feng（霧峰）, the Wu family of Tai-Ping（太平）,the Lu family of Shen-Gang（神岡）and the Lin family of Zhu-Shan（竹山）in central of Taiwan.
It was considered the subject under the following heads: Longitudinal studies of four familial tombs during the Japanese period in Taiwan (1895-1945). Diachronic studies of four familial tombs from the period of the Ching dynasty to the democratic republic. Besides, the historical method is adopted to collect documents that relationship by marriage and social relations. And the field study is also used to gather fundamental element correlation between contents of environment, layout and decoration of four family.
