Jan Visits Hashima Island - Gunkanjima

Jan Visits Hashima Island - Gunkanjima - Battleship Island


Nagasaki has sufficient sights to keep anyone occupied for at least a couple of days. On our last day in Nagasaki, we did some shopping before going on a boat cruise of Nagasaki bay.	The goal of our boat journey was Hashima Island, more commonly known as Gunkanjima ("Battleship" in English).

Gunkanjima is uninhabited and situated about 15 kilometers from Nagasaki itself.	The island is known for its coal mines, and Mitsubishi bought the island in 1890 with the aim of retrieving coal from the bottom of the sea.

During the Second World War, many Korean and Chinese slave labourers did most of the work, but through most of the period through the closing of the coal mining facility in 1974, regular Japanese workers and families lived on the island.	According to some sources, in the late 1950s the island had the highest population density in the world, and more than 5,000 people lived on this tiny spot in the ocean. The island was fully equipped with schools, bars, a movie theater, and other facilities.