A note on the approach rather than the site: the obvious track is not the right one. Locals were friendly and pointed us at the longer route, which is longer for a reason. Take the long one.
The whole island: seawall, and the concrete stacked behind it.
Abandoned✓ VERIFIED
Hashima Island
The battleship-shaped island that mined coal from under the sea
Region
Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan
Coordinates
32.6277, 129.7386
Access
Permit required
Risk
Severe
77
The record
A 16-acre island developed by Mitsubishi from 1887 for undersea coal mining. At its 1959 peak it held over 5,000 people, among the densest populations ever recorded. Abandoned in 1974 when the mine closed. UNESCO World Heritage since 2015.
The oracle
sign in to retell
You smell it before you see it — wet concrete, iron, something older. Hashima Island does not announce itself. What registers first is scale — the structure is larger inside than the approach prepares you for, and colder.
Someone has been here recently. The dust says so, and says nothing else. The known history covers perhaps two thirds of what you are standing in. Beyond that the record thins into municipal paperwork and hearsay, and then into nothing at all.
Nobody who works nearby will name it. They give directions around it instead. At danger level 4 of 5, the honest advice is that the place deserves more caution than curiosity usually allows.
Site reconstruction
Walk inside Hashima Island
You arrive outside. Orbit the site, fly over it or walk the grounds, then go in — four fragments of this site's record are scattered through the structure, and your torch runs down the whole time.
ENTER THE SITE →orbit · fly · walk, then inside · sign in to keep the record
Generated from this site's record — a abandoned of its scale and condition. Its character, not its surveyed floor plan.
Field reports · 2
Written by people who actually went. Where these contradict the oracle, believe these.
Second visit, three years after the first, and the difference is grim. Water has got into the upper floor and taken the ceiling with it. Whatever you were planning to photograph here, do it now or don't bother.
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Discussion · 2
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Whoever wrote this dossier has clearly been. The hazard list is exactly right.
Been on my list for six years. Every time I get close, the weather turns.