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Nagasaki is the capital of Nagasaki Prefecture, on the west coast of Kyushu in Japan, a port city of steep hills wrapped around a long, narrow harbor. For more than two centuries of national isolation it was the only port where Japan traded with the Dutch and the Chinese, and its churches, Chinese temples and old Western houses still give it a character unlike any other Japanese city.
Portuguese traders and Jesuits arrived in the 16th century, and Nagasaki became the center of Christianity in Japan until the faith was banned. Hidden Christians kept it alive in secret, and their sites are now on the UNESCO World Heritage list. On 9 August 1945 the city became the second, and so far last, target of an atomic bomb. Rebuilt since, it is home to about 380,000 people.
Start at the Peace Park and the Atomic Bomb Museum in Urakami, then walk the old foreign quarter around Dejima, Glover Garden and Ōura Church. Cross the Megane Bridge to the Chinese temples, take a boat to Gunkanjima, and end the day on Mount Inasa for the night view.
Nagasaki Peace Park was laid out in 1955 in the Urakami district of Nagasaki, near the hypocenter of the atomic bomb that exploded on 9 August 1945. At its north end sits the 10-meter Peace Statue by Seibō Kitamura, its right hand pointing to the threat of nuclear weapons, the left to peace.
Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum opened in April 1996 beside the Peace Park in Nagasaki, and tells the story of the bombing of 9 August 1945. A clock stopped at 11:02, bent factory steel, melted relics and a model of the Fat Man bomb lead on to the history of nuclear weapons and a call for their end.
Urakami Cathedral stands on a hill in the Urakami district of Nagasaki, raised by Catholic villagers who came home in 1873 from exile for their faith. Their brick church, finished in 1914, was destroyed by the atomic bomb in 1945. Rebuilt in 1959, it is one of the largest Catholic churches in Japan.
Twenty-Six Martyrs Museum stands on Nishizaka Hill in Nagasaki, where 26 Catholics were crucified on 5 February 1597. It opened in 1962, the centenary of their canonization, in a building by architect Kenji Imai beside a bronze memorial to them, and was visited by Pope John Paul II in 1981.
Dejima is a fan-shaped artificial island built in the 1630s in the harbor of Nagasaki, where the Portuguese and then, from 1641, the Dutch were confined to trade during Japan's isolation. Joined to the land since the Meiji era, it is a national historic site whose old buildings are being rebuilt.
Glover Garden is an open-air museum on the Minamiyamate hillside of Nagasaki, set around the 1863 home of Scottish merchant Thomas Blake Glover, the oldest surviving Western-style house in Japan. Other old Western houses from the city were moved here, and its terraces look out over the harbor.
Ōura Church stands on the hill below Glover Garden in Nagasaki, finished in 1864 by French priests in honor of the Twenty-Six Martyrs. It is the oldest surviving Christian building in Japan, a national treasure and part of a World Heritage Site, where hidden Christians revealed their faith in 1865.
Hashima Island, known as Gunkanjima or Battleship Island, lies about 15 km off central Nagasaki, packed with the concrete ruins of a coal-mining town that held 5,259 people in 1959. Abandoned after the mine closed in 1974, it reopened to visitors by boat in 2009 and is a World Heritage Site.
Megane Bridge is a twin-arch stone bridge over the Nakashima River in Nagasaki, built in 1634 by Mokusu Nyojō, a Chinese monk of Kōfuku-ji, and one of the oldest stone arch bridges in Japan. Its arches and their reflection look like spectacles, and it survived the 1982 flood that swept others away.
Sōfuku-ji is an Ōbaku Zen temple in Nagasaki, founded in 1629 by Chinese traders from Fuzhou, and the oldest Chinese-style temple in Japan. Behind its bright red Ming-style Dragon Palace Gate, the main Buddha hall of 1646 and the First Gate, made in China in 1644, are both national treasures.
Suwa Shrine is the main Shinto shrine of Nagasaki, set on the slopes of Mount Tamazono and reached by a long flight of 277 stone steps. Revived in 1625 as Christianity was banned, it moved here in 1651, and every 7 to 9 October it hosts the Nagasaki Kunchi festival and its dragon dance.
Mount Inasa is a 333-meter hill west of central Nagasaki, reached by the Nagasaki Ropeway and a slope car. From the observation deck at its summit, the lights of the city and harbor form what locals call the ten-million-dollar night view, ranked among the three great night views of Japan.
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