21 Sights in Nagasaki, Japan (with Map and Images)
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Welcome to your journey through the most beautiful sights in Nagasaki, Japan! Whether you want to discover the city's historical treasures or experience its modern highlights, you'll find everything your heart desires here. Be inspired by our selection and plan your unforgettable adventure in Nagasaki. Dive into the diversity of this fascinating city and discover everything it has to offer.
Sightseeing Tours in NagasakiActivities in Nagasaki
Hashima Island , commonly called Gunkanjima , is a tiny abandoned island off Nagasaki, lying about 15 kilometres from the centre of the city. It is one of 505 uninhabited islands in Nagasaki Prefecture. The island's most notable features are its abandoned concrete buildings, undisturbed except by nature, and the surrounding seawall. While the island is a symbol of the rapid industrialization of Japan, it is also a reminder of Japanese war crimes as a site of forced labour prior to and during World War II.
Meganebashi (眼鏡橋) or Spectacles Bridge, over the Nakashima River (中島川) was built in Nagasaki in 1634 by the Chinese monk Mokusunyoujo who was in the second generation of Chinese monks living at Kofukuji Temple. It is said to be the oldest stone arch bridge in Japan along with Edo's Nihonbashi bridge and Iwakuni's Kintaikyou bridge and has been designated as an Important Cultural Property. Megane Bridge is also part of the first group of bridges built over Nakashima river. Megane Bridge is made of stone and is a double arch bridge. It received the nickname "Spectacles Bridge" because its two arches and their reflection in the water create the image of a pair of spectacles. Vehicles are prohibited from crossing the bridge and is strictly prohibited to pedestrians only. On July 23, 1982, a disastrous deluge washed away six of the ten stone bridges over the Nakashima River. Meganebashi was badly damaged but almost all the original stones were retrieved and the bridge was restored to its original appearance. As well as being damaged in a flood in 1982 another flood in 1647 destroyed Megane Bridge but was rebuilt the following year in 1648 by Koumu Hirado.
The Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum is in the city of Nagasaki, Japan. The museum is a remembrance to the atomic bombing of Nagasaki by the United States on 9 August 1945 at 11:02:35 am. Next to the museum is the Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims, built in 2003. The bombing marked a new era in war, making Nagasaki a symbolic location for a memorial. The counterpart in Hiroshima is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. These locations symbolize the nuclear age, remind visitors of the vast destruction and indiscriminate death caused by nuclear weapons, and signify a commitment to peace.
The atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki City was an event in which the Allied United States dropped the atomic bomb "Fat Man" (hereinafter referred to as the atomic bomb) on Nagasaki of Japan, an Axis power, on August 9 (Thursday), at the end of World War II (Pacific War), and exploded at 11:02 a.m. This atomic bomb is the second and last nuclear weapon in human history to be used in combat as of 2024.
Nagasaki Peace Park is a park located in Nagasaki, Japan, commemorating the atomic bombing of the city on August 9, 1945 during World War II. It is next to the Atomic Bomb Museum and near the Peace Memorial Hall.
6. Glover Garden
Glover Garden is a park in Nagasaki, Japan, built for Thomas Blake Glover, a Scottish merchant who contributed to the modernization of Japan in shipbuilding, coal mining, and other fields. In it stands the Glover Residence, the oldest Western-style house surviving in Japan and Nagasaki's foremost tourist attraction.
7. Dejima Dutch Trading Post
Dejima or Deshima, in the 17th century also called Tsukishima , was an artificial island off Nagasaki, Japan that served as a trading post for the Portuguese (1570–1639) and subsequently the Dutch (1641–1858). For 220 years, it was the central conduit for foreign trade and cultural exchange with Japan during the isolationist Edo period (1600–1869), and the only Japanese territory open to Westerners.
8. Urakami Cathedral
The Immaculate Conception Cathedral (無原罪の聖母司教座聖堂) also St. Mary's Cathedral, often known as Urakami Cathedral after its location Urakami, is a Roman Catholic cathedral located in Motoomachi, Nagasaki, Japan.
9. Oura Catholic Church
The Oura Church or Oura Cathedral, officially the Basilica of the Twenty-Six Holy Martyrs of Japan (日本二十六聖殉教者聖堂), is a Catholic minor basilica and co-cathedral in Nagasaki, Japan, built soon after the end of the Japanese government's Seclusion Policy in 1853. It is named after the 26 Japanese Martyrs. For many years it was the only Western-style building declared a national treasure, and is said to be the oldest Christian church in Japan.
10. Twenty-Six Martyrs Museum
The Twenty-Six Martyrs Museum and Monument were built on Nishizaka Hill in Nagasaki, Japan in June 1962 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the canonization by the Roman Catholic Church of the Christians executed on the site on February 5, 1597. The 26 people, a mixture of 20 native Japanese Christians and six foreign priests had been arrested in Kyoto and Osaka on the order of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the national ruler, for preaching Christianity. They were imprisoned, then later marched through the snow to Nagasaki, so that their execution might serve as a deterrent to Nagasaki's large Christian population. Hung up on 26 crosses with chains and ropes, the Christians were lanced to death in front of a large crowd on Nishizaka Hill. Saint Paul Miki is said to have preached to the crowd from his cross.
11. Endo Shusaku Literary Museum
The Endo Shusaku Literary Museum is a museum dedicated to the life and work of Japanese novelist Shusaku Endo. It is in the Sotome district in the northwestern part of the city of Nagasaki. Sotome is famed as the home of the hidden Christians and served as the scene for Endo's novel Silence.
12. Hypocenter Monument
In a narrow sense, hypocenter refers to the center of the explosion of nuclear weapons such as atomic bombs. In a broad sense, it refers to the center of the explosion of a powerful bomb. In addition, the place where a major incident occurs, or the place where a major epidemic or social phenomenon occurs, is also called the hypocenter.
13. 長崎縣護國神社
Nagasaki Gokoku Shrine is a Gokoku Shrine located in Nagasaki, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. It is dedicated to the spirits of the approximately 60,000 people from Nagasaki Prefecture who died between the Meiji Restoration and Pacific War.
14. Goshinji
Goshinji Temple is a temple of the Pure Land sect located in Nagasaki City, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. The official name of the temple is Goshinji Temple. The main statue is a statue of Amida that is said to have originated in the Ming Kingdom. It is the oldest surviving temple in Nagasaki City.
15. 長崎ブリックホール
Nagasaki Brick Hall is a cultural facility of Nagasaki City located in Mosato Town, Nagasaki City, Nagasaki Prefecture. From April 2024, Japan Benex Co., Ltd., headquartered in Isahaya City, acquired the naming rights and nicknamed the facility "Benex Nagasaki Brick Hall".
16. Chanpon Museum
Shikairo is a Chinese restaurant located in Nagasaki City, Nagasaki Prefecture, and a company (corporation) headquartered in Nagasaki City, Nagasaki Prefecture, which operates the restaurant. It is known as the birthplace of champon and dish udon.
17. Ono Village
The Ono settlement refers to the former collective name (Ono-go during the Edo period, Ono-mura after the Meiji period) for the current Shimo-Ono and Kami-Ono towns, as well as the Koshikubi and Tsuji districts in Nagasaki City, Nagasaki Prefecture, and it retains the landscape of a settlement developed by so-called hidden Christians. Within the settlement, there is the Ono Church Hall, designated as an important cultural property.
18. Kameyama Shachu Museum
The Kameyama Shachu Memorial Hall is a memorial hall maintained by Nagasaki City on the site of the ronin and trading society "Kameyama Shachu" formed in Nagasaki in 1865 by Sakamoto Ryoma and others in Irabayashi, Nagasaki City, Nagasaki Prefecture.
19. Nagasakishi Noguchiyataro Memorial Museum
The Nagasaki City Yataro Noguchi Memorial Art Museum is an art museum located in Nagasaki City, Nagasaki Prefecture. It exhibits works by Yataro Noguchi, a representative painter in the post-war Japanese Western painting scene.
20. Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum
Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum opened in Nagasaki, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan, in 2005. The collection comprises artworks relating to Nagasaki as well as works of Spanish art collected by Suma Yakichiro , special envoy to Spain during the Second World War. Alongside the Nagasaki Museum of History and Culture, which opened the same year, it supersedes and replaces the former Nagasaki Prefectural Museum and Art Museum , which closed at the end of 2002.
21. Kosuge Slip Dock
The Kosuge Ship Repair Dock is the remains of Japan's first western-style dock, erected in the Bakumatsu period in what is now the Kosuge neighborhood of the city of Nagasaki of Japan. The site was designated a National Historic Site in 2009. and was later designed as a component of the Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution: Iron and Steel, Shipbuilding and Coal Mining, which received UNESCO World Heritage Site status in 2015.
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Disclaimer Please be aware of your surroundings and do not enter private property. We are not liable for any damages that occur during the tours.