Today I would like to share about Hashima Island. This Island commonly called Gunkanjima or Gunkanshima which means Battleship Island. It is one among 505 uninhabited island in the Nagasaki Prefecture about 15 kilometers from Nagasaki itself.
The island was populated from 1887 to 1974 as a coal mining facility. The island's main features are the abandoned concrete buildings and the sea wall surrounding it. The island has been administered as part of Nagasaki city since 2005.Previously, it had been administered by the former town of Takashima.
It is known for its coal mines and their operation during the industrialization of Japan. In 1890, Mitsubishi bought the island and began the project, the aim of which was retrieving coal from undersea mines. They built Japan's first large concrete building (9 stories high), a block of apartments in 1916 to accommodate their burgeoning ranks of workers (many of whom were forcibly recruited laborers from other parts of Asia) and to protect against typhoon destruction. According to a South Korean commission, the island housed 500 Koreans who were forced to work between 1939 and 1945, during World War II.
In 1959, the 15-acre island's population reached its peak of 5,259, with a population density of 835 people per hectare for the whole island, or 1,391 per hectare for the residential district.
As petroleum replaced coal in Japan in the 1960s, coal mines began shutting down all over the country, and Hashima's mines were no exception. Mitsubishi officially announced the closing of the mine in 1974, and today it is empty and bare, which is why it is called Ghost Island. Travel to Hashima was re-opened on April 22, 2009 after 35 years of closure. The following are some picture of Hashima Island:
