Hashima (Gunkanjima): Nagasaki's Coal and Shipyard Story

Thomas Blake Glover crossed from Shanghai to Nagasaki in 1859, aged 21, and began by buying green tea. His house, completed in 1863 by Hidenoshin Koyama of Amakusa island, overlooks the harbour from the Minamiyamate hillside. It was also where Glover met rebel samurai from the Chōshū and Satsuma domains. He went on to contribute to Japan's shipbuilding and coal mining. The house is the oldest Western-style house surviving in Japan, and the garden around it is a park open to the public.

訪問のヒント: Glover Garden is a public park on the Minamiyamate hillside; it draws nearly two million visitors a year.

Japan's first western-style dock was built in 1867 by Godai Tomoatsu, with Komatsu Kiyokado and Glover as investors. All its equipment, from the towing machinery to the boilers, came from Great Britain. Locals called it the Soroban Dock, because the slide used to haul ships out of the water looked like an abacus. It was completed in 1868 and sold to the Meiji government in 1869. The towing shed, machinery, tracks and stone walls remain in good condition on the west coast of Nagasaki Port.

訪問のヒント: The dock remains sit in the Kosuge neighbourhood.

In 1868 the Saga domain and Glover jointly funded mining on Takashima island. They sank Japan's first vertical shaft, the Hokkei shaft. It closed on 27 November 1986. Together with Hashima it is listed as a component of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution World Heritage site.

場所の精度: The pin marks Takashima island, not the exact site of the Hokkei shaft, which the source does not locate.

Dutch engineers began a modern foundry and shipyard near Dejima in 1857. In 1884 Iwasaki Yatarō, founder of Mitsubishi, leased it from the government; he bought it outright in 1887. Mitsubishi then owned both a shipyard in Nagasaki and, from 1890, the island of Hashima. The yard is still the primary shipbuilding division of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

場所の精度: The shipyard has grown since 1857 and no pin could be confirmed for its original site, so it is left unpinned.

Mitsubishi bought Hashima in 1890 and mined coal under the sea. In 1916 it built Japan's first large reinforced concrete building, a seven-floor apartment block. The population peaked at 5,259 in 1959. From the 1930s until the end of World War II conscripted Korean civilians and Chinese prisoners of war worked here in harsh conditions. The mine closed in January 1974 and the island was emptied on 20 April. The nickname Battleship Island comes from its resemblance to the battleship Tosa. UNESCO approved the coal mine as a World Heritage Site in July 2015. Under a deal with South Korea that cleared the way for the listing, Japan agreed to cover the history of forced labour on the island.

訪問のヒント: Only a small southern section has been open for tours since April 2009; the residential area remains off-limits.