This article is about the city in Japan. For the prefecture with the same name where this city is located, seeNagasaki Prefecture. For other uses, seeNagasaki (disambiguation).
As of February 1, 2024[update], Nagasaki has an estimated population of 392,281,[1] and a population density of 966 people per km2. The total area is 405.86 km2 (156.70 sq mi).[11]
The first recorded contact between Portuguese explorers and Japan occurred in 1543, when a Portuguese ship, possibly a Chinese junk carrying Portuguese sailors, was blown off course and landed on Tanegashima, an island south of Kyūshū. This event marked the beginning of direct contact between Japan and Europe.[12]
Two Portuguese traders, António Mota and Francisco Zeimoto, were among the crew members. They introduced the Japanese to firearms, specifically the Portuguese matchlock guns known as harquebuses. The local lord, Tanegashima Tokitaka, purchased two of these firearms and had local blacksmiths replicate them, leading to the development of the "tanegashima" guns in Japan.[13][12]
Fernão Mendes Pinto, a Portuguese adventurer and writer, claimed in his memoirs,Peregrinação, that he was part of the first landing party in 1543. However, his account is considered unreliable, and historians generally agree that he was not among the first Europeans to reach Japan.[14]
The introduction of firearms had a significant impact on Japanese warfare, contributing to the unification of Japan during the Sengoku period. The Portuguese also introduced other goods and ideas, including Christianity, which further influenced Japanese society.[14]
Today, the arrival of the Portuguese in 1543 is commemorated in Tanegashima with the annual Teppō Matsuri (Firearm Festival), celebrating the island's historical connection to the introduction of firearms in Japan.[13]
Despite the mutual advantages derived from these trading contacts, which would soon be acknowledged by all parties involved, the lack of a proper seaport inKyūshū for the purpose of harboring foreign ships posed a major problem for both merchants and the Kyushudaimyōs (feudal lords) who expected to collect great advantages from the trade with the Portuguese.
In the meantime,SpanishJesuit missionarySt. Francis Xavier arrived inKagoshima, South Kyūshū, in 1549. After a somewhat fruitful two-year sojourn in Japan, he left for China in 1552 but died soon afterwards.[15] His followers who remained behind converted a number ofdaimyōs. The most notable among them wasŌmura Sumitada. In 1569, Ōmura granted a permit for the establishment of a port with the purpose of harboring Portuguese ships in Nagasaki, which was set up in 1571, under the supervision of theJesuit missionary Gaspar Vilela andPortuguese Captain-MajorTristão Vaz de Veiga, with Ōmura's personal assistance.[16]
The little harbor village quickly grew into a diverse port city,[17] and Portuguese products imported through Nagasaki (such as tobacco, bread, textiles and a Portuguese sponge-cake calledcastellas) were assimilated into popular Japanese culture.Tempura derived from a popular Portuguese recipe originally known aspeixinhos da horta, and takes its name from the Portuguese word, 'tempero,' seasoning, and refers to the tempora quadragesima, forty days of Lent during which eating meat was forbidden, another example of the enduring effects of this cultural exchange. The Portuguese also brought with them many goods from other Asian countries, such as China. The value of Portuguese exports from Nagasaki during the 16th century were estimated to ascend to over 1,000,000cruzados, reaching as many as 3,000,000 in 1637.[18]
Due to the instability during theSengoku period, Sumitada and Jesuit leaderAlexandro Valignano conceived a plan to pass administrative control over to theSociety of Jesus rather than see the Catholic city taken over by a non-Catholicdaimyō. Thus, for a brief period after 1580, the city of Nagasaki was a Jesuit colony, under their administrative and military control. It became a refuge for Christians escaping maltreatment in other regions of Japan.[19] In 1587, however,Toyotomi Hideyoshi's campaign to unify the country arrived in Kyūshū. Concerned with the large Christian influence in Kyūshū, Hideyoshi ordered the expulsion of allmissionaries, and placed the city under his direct control. However, the expulsion order went largely unenforced, and the fact remained that most of Nagasaki's population remained openly practicingCatholic.[citation needed]
In 1596, the Spanish shipSan Felipe was wrecked off the coast ofShikoku, and Hideyoshi learned from its pilot[20] that the SpanishFranciscans were the vanguard of anIberian invasion of Japan. In response, Hideyoshi ordered thecrucifixions of twenty-six Catholics in Nagasaki on February 5 of the next year (i.e. the "Twenty-six Martyrs of Japan"). Portuguese traders were not ostracized, however, and so the city continued to thrive.
In 1602,Augustinian missionaries also arrived in Japan, and whenTokugawa Ieyasu took power in 1603, Catholicism was still tolerated. Many Catholicdaimyōs had been critical allies at theBattle of Sekigahara, and the Tokugawa position was not strong enough to move against them. OnceOsaka Castle had been taken andToyotomi Hideyoshi's offspring killed, though, the Tokugawa dominance was assured. In addition, the Dutch and English presence allowed trade without religious strings attached. Thus, in 1614,Catholicism was officially banned and all missionaries ordered to leave. Most Catholic daimyoapostatized, and forced their subjects to do so, although a few would not renounce the religion and left the country forMacau,Luzon andJapantowns in Southeast Asia. A brutal campaign of persecution followed, with thousands of converts across Kyūshū and other parts of Japan killed, tortured, or forced to renounce their religion. Many Japanese and foreign Christians were executed by publiccrucifixion andburning at the stake in Nagasaki.[21][22] They became known as theMartyrs of Japan and were later venerated by severalPopes.[23]
Catholicism's last gasp as an open religion and the last major military action in Japan until theMeiji Restoration was theShimabara Rebellion of 1637. While there is no evidence that Europeans directly incited the rebellion,Shimabara Domain had been a Christianhan for several decades, and the rebels adopted many Portuguese motifs and Christianicons. Consequently, in Tokugawa society the word "Shimabara" solidified the connection between Christianity and disloyalty. The Shimabara Rebellion also convinced many policy-makers that foreign influences were more trouble than they were worth, leading to thenational isolation policy. The Portuguese were expelled from the archipelago altogether. They had previously been living on a specially constructedartificial island in Nagasaki harbour that served as atrading post, calledDejima. The Dutch were then moved from their base atHirado onto the artificial island.
Dejima was an artificial island in Nagasaki Bay; its fan shape was easily recognizable. The trading post consisted mainly of warehouses and dwelling houses (1669 engraving).
TheGreat Fire of Nagasaki destroyed much of the city in 1663, including theMazu shrine at theKofuku Temple patronized by the Chinese sailors and merchants visiting the port.[24]
In 1720, the ban on Dutch books was lifted, causing hundreds of scholars to flood into Nagasaki to study European science and art. Consequently, Nagasaki became a major center of what was calledrangaku, or "Dutch learning". During theEdo period, theTokugawa shogunate governed the city, appointing ahatamoto, theNagasaki bugyō, as its chief administrator. During this period, Nagasaki was designated a "shogunal city". The number of such cities rose from three to eleven under the Tokugawa administration.[25]
Consensus among historians was once that Nagasaki was Japan's only window on the world during its time as a closed country in the Tokugawa era. However, nowadays, it is generally accepted that this was not the case, since Japan interacted and traded with theRyūkyū Kingdom,Korea and Russia throughSatsuma,Tsushima and Matsumae respectively. Nevertheless, Nagasaki was depicted in contemporary art and literature as a cosmopolitan port brimming with exotic curiosities from the Western world.[26]
In 1808, during theNapoleonic Wars, theRoyal Navy frigateHMSPhaetonentered Nagasaki Harbor in search of Dutch trading ships. The local magistrate was unable to resist the crew’s demand for food, fuel, and water, later committingseppuku as a result.Laws were passed in the wake of this incident strengthening coastal defenses, threatening death to intruding foreigners, and prompting the training of English and Russian translators.
TheTōjinyashiki (唐人屋敷) or Chinese Factory in Nagasaki was also an important conduit for Chinese goods and information for the Japanese market. Various Chinese merchants and artists sailed between the Chinese mainland and Nagasaki. Some actually combined the roles of merchant and artist such as 18th centuryYi Hai. It is believed that as much as one-third of the population of Nagasaki at this time may have been Chinese.[27] The Chinese traders at Nagasaki were confined to a walled compound (Tōjin yashiki) which was located in the same vicinity as Dejima island, and the activities of the Chinese, though less strictly controlled than the Dutch, were closely monitored by theNagasaki bugyō.
With theMeiji Restoration, Japan opened its doors once again to foreign trade and diplomatic relations. Nagasaki became atreaty port in 1859 and modernization began in earnest in 1868. Nagasaki was officially proclaimed a city on April 1, 1889. With Christianity legalized and theKakure Kirishitan coming out of hiding, Nagasaki regained its earlier role as a center for Roman Catholicism in Japan.[28]
During theMeiji period, Nagasaki became a center ofheavy industry. Its main industry wasship-building, with the dockyards under control ofMitsubishi Heavy Industries becoming one of the prime contractors for theImperial Japanese Navy, and with Nagasaki harbor used as an anchorage under the control of nearbySasebo Naval District. DuringWorld War II, at the time of the nuclear attack, Nagasaki was an important industrial city, containing both plants of the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works, the Akunoura Engine Works, Mitsubishi Arms Plant, Mitsubishi Electric Shipyards, Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works, Mitsubishi-Urakami Ordnance Works, several other small factories, and most of the ports storage and trans-shipment facilities, which employed about 90% of the city's labor force, and accounted for 90% of the city's industry. These connections with the Japanesewar effort made Nagasaki a major target forstrategic bombing by theAllies during the war.[29][30]
Plan of Nagasaki, Hizen province, 1778
View ofDejima in Nagasaki Bay by Kawahara Keigo c. 1836
The mushroom cloud from the atomic explosion over Nagasaki at 11:02 am, August 9, 1945An intacttorii in the foreground and a one-legged torii in the background, Nagasaki, October 1945
In the 12 months prior to the nuclear attack, Nagasaki had experienced five small-scale air attacks by an aggregate of 136 U.S. planes which dropped a total of 270 tons ofhigh explosives, 53 tons ofincendiaries, and 20 tons offragmentation bombs. Of these, a raid of August 1, 1945, was the most effective, with a few of the bombs hitting the shipyards and dock areas in the southwest portion of the city, several hitting the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works, and six bombs landing at the Nagasaki Medical School and Hospital, with three direct hits on buildings there. While the damage from these few bombs was relatively small, it created considerable concern in Nagasaki and a number of people, principally school children, were evacuated to rural areas for safety, consequently reducing the population in the city at the time of the atomic attack.[29][31][32]
On the day of the nuclear strike (August 9, 1945) the population in Nagasaki was estimated to be 263,000, which consisted of 240,000 Japanese residents, 10,000 Korean residents, 2,500 conscripted Korean workers, 9,000 Japanese soldiers, 600 conscripted Chinese workers, and 400 AlliedPOWs.[33] That day, theBoeing B-29 SuperfortressBockscar, commanded byMajorCharles Sweeney, departed fromTinian'sNorth Field just before dawn, this time carrying aplutonium bomb, code named "Fat Man". The primary target for the bomb wasKokura, with the secondary target being Nagasaki, if the primary target was too cloudy to make a visual sighting. When the plane reached Kokura at 9:44 a.m. (10:44 am. Tinian Time), the city was obscured by clouds and smoke, as thenearby city of Yahata had beenfirebombed on the previous day – the steel plant in Yahata had also instructed their workforce to intentionally set fire to containers ofcoal tar, to produce target-obscuring black smoke.[34] Unable to make a bombing attack 'on visual' because of the clouds and smoke, and with limited fuel, the plane left the city at 10:30 a.m. for the secondary target. After 20 minutes, the plane arrived at 10:50 a.m. over Nagasaki, but the city was also concealed by clouds. Desperately short of fuel and after making a couple of bombing runs without obtaining any visual target, the crew was forced to use radar to drop the bomb. At the last minute, the opening of the clouds allowed them to make visual contact with a racetrack in Nagasaki, and they dropped the bomb on the city'sUrakami Valley, midway between the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works in the south, and the Mitsubishi-Urakami Ordnance Works in the north.[35] The bomb exploded 47 seconds after its release, at 11:02 a.m. at an approximate altitude of 1,800 feet.[36]
Less than a second after the detonation, the north of the city was destroyed and more than 10% of the city's population were killed.[37][better source needed][unreliable fringe source?] Among the 35,000 deaths were 150 Japanese soldiers, 6,200 out of the 7,500 employees of the Mitsubishi Munitions plant, and 24,000 others (including 2,000Koreans). The industrial damage in Nagasaki was high, leaving 68–80% of the non-dock industrial production destroyed. It was the second and, to date, the last use of anuclear weapon incombat, and also the second detonation of a plutonium bomb. The first combat use of a nuclear weapon was the "Little Boy" bomb, which was dropped on the Japanese city ofHiroshima on August 6, 1945. Thefirst plutonium bomb was tested incentral New Mexico, United States, on July 16, 1945. The Fat Man bomb was more powerful than the one dropped over Hiroshima, but because of Nagasaki's more uneven terrain, there was less damage.[38][39][40]
The city was rebuilt after the war, albeit dramatically changed. The pace of reconstruction was slow. The first simple emergency dwellings were not provided until 1946. The focus of redevelopment was the replacement of war industries with foreign trade, shipbuilding and fishing. This was formally declared when the Nagasaki International Culture City Reconstruction Law was passed in May 1949.[41] New temples were built, as well as new churches, owing to an increase in the presence of Christianity.[42] Some of the rubble was left as a memorial, such as a one-leggedtorii atSannō Shrine and an arch nearground zero. New structures were also raised as memorials, such as theAtomic Bomb Museum. Nagasaki remains primarily a port city, supporting a richshipbuilding industry.
Nagasaki lies at the head of a long bay that forms the best natural harbor on the island of Kyūshū. The main commercial and residential area of the city lies on a small plain near the end of the bay. Two rivers divided by a mountain spur form the two main valleys in which the city lies. The heavily built-up area of the city is confined by the terrain to less than 4 square miles (10 km2).
Nagasaki has the typicalhumid subtropical climate of Kyūshū and Honshū, characterized by mild winters and long, hot, and humid summers. Apart fromKanazawa andShizuoka, it is the wettest sizeable city in Japan. In the summer, the combination of persistent heat and high humidity results in unpleasant conditions, withwet-bulb temperatures sometimes reaching 26 °C (79 °F). In the winter, however, Nagasaki is drier and sunnier thanGotō to the west, and temperatures are slightly milder than further inland in Kyūshū. Since records began in 1878, the wettest month has been July 1982, with 1,178 millimetres (46 in) including 555 millimetres (21.9 in) in a single day, whilst the driest month has been September 1967, with 1.8 millimetres (0.07 in). Precipitation occurs year-round, though winter is the driest season; rainfall peaks sharply in June and July. August is the warmest month of the year. On January 24, 2016, a snowfall of 17 centimetres (6.7 in) was recorded.[43]
Climate data for Nagasaki (1991−2020 normals, extremes 1878−present)
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Nagasaki prefecture population pyramid in 2020
OnAugust 9, 1945, the population was estimated to be 263,000. As of February 1, 2024, the city had a population of 392,281 and a population density of 1,629 people per km2.
Monument at the atomic bombhypocenter in NagasakiNagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb VictimsSōfuku-ji (National treasure of Japan)
The NagasakiLantern Festival[50] is celebrated annually over the first 15 days ofChinese New Year[51] and is the largest of its kind in all of Japan.[52]Kunchi, the most famous festival in Nagasaki, is held from October 7–9.[53]
^"令和２年全国都道府県市区町村別面積調 - 長崎県"(PDF). Geospatial Information Authority of Japan. January 1, 2020.Archived(PDF) from the original on June 13, 2020. RetrievedJune 20, 2020.
^Cambridge Encyclopedia of Japan,Richard Bowring and Haruko Laurie
^Screech, Timon.The Western Scientific Gaze and Popular Imagery in Later Edo Japan: The Lens Within the Heart. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. p15.
^Doak, Kevin M. (2011)."Introduction: Catholicism, Modernity, and Japanese Culture". In Doak, Kevin M. (ed.).Xavier's Legacies: Catholicism in Modern Japanese Culture. UBC Press. pp. 12–13.ISBN9780774820240. RetrievedFebruary 27, 2018.In 1904, Catholics in Nagasaki, with their deep ties to the past, were three times more numerous than Catholics in the rest of Japan...
^Nuke-Rebuke: Writers & Artists Against Nuclear Energy & Weapons (The Contemporary anthology series). The Spirit That Moves Us Press. May 1, 1984. pp. 22–29.
^"あすにかけ全国的に厳しい冷え込み続く" [Severe cold weather continues across the country into tomorrow].nhk.or.jp. January 25, 2016. Archived fromthe original on January 27, 2016.
Nuclear Files.orgArchived February 8, 2007, at theWayback Machine Comprehensive information on the history, and political and social implications of the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
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