Nagasaki Travel Guide

Nagasaki is the most outward-looking city in Japan, and it has been for four hundred years. During the two centuries when the country was closed to the outside world, this was the single port where limited foreign trade continued, first with the Portuguese and later the Dutch and Chinese. That history is written into the food, the churches and the street layout in a way you find nowhere else.

It is also the second city destroyed by an atomic bomb, on 9 August 1945, and it handles that history differently from Hiroshima: more quietly, and with less of the international profile.

The Peace Park and the bomb

The Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum is chronological and unflinching, tracing the city before the bomb, the attack itself and the aftermath. The hypocentre is marked by a simple black pillar in a small park, with a section of the original Urakami Cathedral wall left where it fell.

Peace Park above it holds the Peace Statue and a series of sculptures donated by countries around the world. The scale is smaller and more intimate than Hiroshima’s, and many visitors find it lands harder for that.

Urakami Cathedral, rebuilt on its original site, is worth the walk. Nagasaki had the largest Christian population in Japan, which is why the cathedral was there at all, and why the bomb fell where it did.

The foreign quarter

Dejima was the artificial fan-shaped island where Dutch traders were confined during the closed-country period, and it has been progressively reconstructed. It is the single best place in Japan to understand how that era actually worked.

Glover Garden on the hillside holds the Western-style houses of the merchants who arrived once the country reopened, including the oldest surviving Western building in Japan. The view down over the harbour is excellent.

Oura Church, just below, is the oldest church in Japan and a national treasure. The city’s Chinatown is one of only three in the country and the origin of champon, the local noodle dish.

Eating in Nagasaki

The food here is the clearest evidence of four centuries of foreign contact, and it is unlike anywhere else in Japan.

Champon is the signature, a bowl of thick noodles in a cloudy pork and chicken broth loaded with seafood, pork and vegetables. It was invented in the 1890s by a Chinese restaurateur wanting to feed poor Chinese students cheaply and well. Sara udon is the same flavours over crisp fried noodles.

Castella arrived with Portuguese missionaries in the sixteenth century and has been made here ever since, a dense honey sponge sold in long boxes by shops that have been at it for generations. Shippoku is the formal expression of the same mixing, a banquet of Japanese, Chinese and European dishes served on a round table, which no other Japanese city does.

Toruko rice, meaning Turkish rice, is the local oddity: pilaf, spaghetti and a pork cutlet on one plate with curry sauce. Nobody agrees why it is called that.

Around the harbour

Dejima repays a slow visit. The fan shaped artificial island was built in 1636 to confine Portuguese and later Dutch traders, and for over two hundred years it was the only point of contact between Japan and Europe. Land reclamation swallowed it, and it is now being reconstructed building by building, with around twenty finished and furnished as they were.

Nagasaki Seaside Park and the waterfront walk connect Dejima to the harbour, and the Confucian Shrine below Glover Garden is the only one in the world built by Chinese hands outside China. The Spectacles Bridge, so called because its two arches reflect in the river to look like glasses, is the oldest stone arch bridge in Japan.

The view and the harbour

The night view from Mount Inasa, reached by ropeway, is rated among the best in Japan and sometimes claimed as one of the best in the world. The city wraps around a deep harbour and climbs the hills on both sides, so the lights stack up in tiers.

Gunkanjima, or Battleship Island, is a former coal mining island abandoned in 1974 and now a UNESCO site. Boat tours run out to it and land when the sea allows, which is not always.

Food

Champon is the signature dish, a Chinese-influenced noodle soup with seafood and pork invented here for Chinese students. Sara udon is its crisp-noodle cousin. Castella, a dense sponge cake, came from the Portuguese in the sixteenth century and is now thoroughly Japanese.

Shippoku cuisine is the city in a meal: Japanese, Chinese and European dishes served together at a round table, which no other Japanese city does.

The hidden Christians

This is the thread that runs through Nagasaki and explains a great deal about the city. Christianity arrived with the Portuguese in the sixteenth century and took hold here more than anywhere else in Japan. It was then banned, and believers were tortured and executed, most famously the twenty six martyrs crucified on Nishizaka hill in 1597, commemorated by a monument and museum there.

Communities continued in secret for over two centuries, disguising their faith with statues of Mary made to look like Kannon and passing prayers down orally. When the ban lifted in the 1870s, thousands revealed themselves. Oura Church, built in 1864 for foreign residents, is where that revelation happened, and it is the oldest church in Japan and a national treasure.

Several sites across the region were listed by UNESCO in 2018, including churches on the Goto Islands and at Sotome. It is a genuinely extraordinary piece of history and one most visitors know nothing about.

Where to stay

The area around Nagasaki Station is convenient and has the newest hotels following the Shinkansen extension. Shianbashi and Hamanomachi, the entertainment and shopping districts, put you closer to the food and nightlife.

For the view, some hotels sit on the hillsides above the harbour and give you the night panorama from your room, which saves the ropeway trip.

Gunkanjima and the industrial sites

Hashima, universally called Gunkanjima or Battleship Island for its silhouette, was a coal mining island that housed over 5,000 people in concrete apartment blocks at its peak, making it one of the most densely populated places on earth. The mine closed in 1974 and it was abandoned within weeks.

Boat tours run from the harbour and land on the island when the sea is calm enough, which is roughly half the time. When landing is not possible the boats circle instead, and operators usually offer a partial refund. It appeared as a location in Skyfall.

The island is one of several UNESCO listed sites of Japan’s Meiji industrial revolution around the city, alongside the Mitsubishi shipyard facilities and the Glover House, whose owner supplied ships and arms to the domains that overthrew the shogunate.

When to visit

Nagasaki is subtropical and humid in summer, with a rainy season through June. Spring and autumn are the comfortable windows.

The Lantern Festival in February, marking Chinese New Year, hangs fifteen thousand lanterns across the city and is the most striking time to be here. Kunchi in early October is the major autumn festival, with dragon dances and floats reflecting the Chinese and Dutch influences. The Peace Memorial Ceremony is held on 9 August.

Getting there and around

The Nishikyushu Shinkansen opened in 2022 and connects Nagasaki towards Takeo-Onsen, with a limited express onward to Hakata. From Fukuoka the full journey takes around two hours.

The city runs on trams, which are cheap, frequent and reach everything including the Peace Park, Dejima and the Glover Garden hillside.

How long do you need

Two days. One for the Peace Park and the atomic bomb sites, one for Dejima, Glover Garden and Chinatown, with the Mount Inasa night view at the end of either.

Frequently asked questions

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