Hashima Island (Gunkanjima)

Background

Hashima lies off Nagasaki City, Nagasaki Prefecture, about 15 km from central Nagasaki. Its 7-story miners' apartment block, built in 1916, was Japan's first large reinforced-concrete building. The whole island covers only 6.3 hectares, yet its population peaked at 5,259 in 1959, a density of about 835 people per hectare across the island. Today more than 95% of the island is off-limits, and visitors may walk only along designated viewing routes. Coal was discovered on the island around 1810, and from 1887 to 1974 it was continuously inhabited as an undersea coal mine. Mitsubishi bought the island in 1890 and developed undersea mines, with main shafts reaching up to about a kilometer deep; between 1891 and 1974 some 15.7 million tonnes of coal were extracted. As oil replaced coal in the 1960s, mines closed across Japan; Hashima's mine closed in January 1974, and all residents had left by April 20 that year. Visits resumed on April 22, 2009, and in July 2015 the island was inscribed on the World Heritage List as part of the Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution. From the 1930s until the end of World War II, conscripted civilians from the Korean Peninsula and Chinese prisoners of war performed forced labor at the Mitsubishi facility under wartime mobilization policies, in harsh conditions, and many died from underground accidents, exhaustion and malnutrition. One estimate puts the deaths at 137, another at about 1,300. At the 39th session of the World Heritage Committee in 2015, Japan's representative stated that in the 1940s, at some of the sites, "there were a large number of Koreans and others who were brought against their will and forced to work under harsh conditions," and pledged measures such as an information center to remember the victims. In 2021 a UNESCO/ICOMOS mission report found the related interpretive measures still insufficient, and the dispute has continued since.

Local customs

• Take a designated operator's boat from Nagasaki Port to land on the island: you must book in advance, sign a landing safety agreement and walk the designated routes led by a safety guide, viewing the mine ruins and high-rise apartment blocks from the viewing points
• if landing is not possible that day, the tour circles the island instead, and you can photograph the "battleship" silhouette from the sea.

Travel tips

• Landing depends entirely on the day's sea conditions and the captain's judgment: there is no landing when wind speed exceeds 5 meters per second, waves exceed 0.5 meters or visibility around the island falls below 500 meters, and only about 100 days a year are suitable for landing. If landing is not possible, the tour circles the island and the island entrance fee charged by Nagasaki City is refunded. Children under 6 cannot go ashore and must stay on the boat with a guardian. The island has no toilets, rest areas or luggage storage
• if you are prone to seasickness, take medicine beforehand. Always confirm with the operator whether landing is possible that day
• fees and schedules are as announced by the authorities and the operator.
• Hashima can be reached only by a designated operator's boat
• you cannot land independently. Nagasaki Port pier is about a 10-minute walk from JR Nagasaki Station, or about 3 minutes on foot from Ohato tram stop. Tours can be booked year-round, but landing depends on the sea, and cancellations or non-landing are more likely in the summer typhoon season and in rough winter weather, so follow the operator's announcement on the day.