A new experimental system of base-isolated structures is proposed. There are two kinds of dampers usually used in the base-isolated buildings, one is a viscous-type damper and the other is an elastic-plastic hysteretic-type damper. The base-isolated structure with a viscous damper and that with an elastic-plastic hysteretic damper are compared in this paper. The viscous damper is modeled by a mini piston and the elastic-plastic hysteretic damper is modeled by a low yield-point steel. The capacity of both dampers is determined so that the dissipated energies are equivalent at a specified deformation. When the capacity of both dampers is determined according to this criterion, it is shown that the response of the base-isolated structure with the elastic-plastic hysteretic damper is larger than that with the viscous damper. This characteristic is demonstrated through the comparison of the bound of the aspect ratio. It is shown that the bound of aspect ratio for the base-isolated structure with the elastic-plastic hysteretic damper is generally smaller than that with the viscous damper. When the base-isolated structure is subjected to long-duration input, the mechanical property of the elastic-plastic hysteretic damper deteriorates and the response of the base-isolated structure including that damper becomes larger than that with the viscous damper. The effect of this change of material properties on the response of the base-isolated structure is also investigated.