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The abandoned coal mine of Gunkanjima is one of the sites that was listed on the World Cultural Heritage List on July 5, 2015, as the Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution: Iron and Steel, Shipbuilding and Coal Mining. In 2009, 37 years after the mine was closed, it became possible to go ashore and tour the island. A guide will explain the history of Gunkanjima, which was once a flourishing coal mining community, but is now an abandoned ruin. Follow the traces of that prosperity with your own feet.
START!!
You will arrive at Nagasaki Port, just a 15-minute walk from JR Nagasaki Station. Here you will board a boat bound for Gunkanjima, which was re-opened to tourists in April 2009.
* Each boat company departs from different parts of the port, so please check carefully.
Yamasa Shipping Co., Ltd. | Nagasaki Port Ferry Terminal Building |
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The Gunkanjima Concierge Company | Tokiwa landing pier |
View Nagasaki’s exotic streetscapes and the massive docks of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries from the sea. This is the kind of view that can only be experienced in Nagasaki.
Before your eyes is Nagasaki Shipyard’s Giant Cantilever Crane. This is also one of the World Heritage-listed sites.
Several of the sites included in the listing can be seen from Nagasaki Port.
The boat will soon pass under the Megami Ohashi Bridge and head for Gunkanjima!
As you are enjoying your cruise, Gunkanjima will make its appearance.
Tour the seven-story apartment building where the miners and their families lived, Japan’s oldest multi-story reinforced concrete building, as well as the union office that housed the coalminers’ communal baths. The sight of many of the collapsed buildings speaks of the history of prosperity and decline.
Farewelling Gunkanjima, you will start on the journey back to Nagasaki Port. Megami Ohashi Bridge, which connects the two banks of the arc-shaped port, becomes a popular spot for tourists at night when the bridge is lit up.
In addition to the cruise that lands at Gunkanjima, there is also a round-trip cruise that takes about an hour and 40 minutes. After disembarking, be sure to enjoy some of Nagasaki’s excellent local gourmet foods.
GOAL!!