Hashima Coal Mine  /  Gunkan-jima island

 

Hashima coal mining island is an artificial reclaimed island and the site of Japan’s first major

undersea coal exploitation (1890) pioneered by Mitsubishi – and host to one of the world’s

most extraordinary former mining communities. Hashima Island is located 3 km southwest of

Takashima, and it was the success of Takashima that led Mitsubishi to purchase this island – both

islands giving access to the same undersea coal deposit. Now Hashima is a ruin called “Gunkanjima”,

so called after its resemblance to the silhouette of a battleship.