More than half a million people have visited Gunkanjima (Nagasaki Prefecture) since the ban on visitors was lifted five years ago. The abandoned island, once home to a bustling coal mining town, has proven to be a popular tourist destination due in part to its nomination as a World Heritage site (as part of Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution: Kyushu-Yamaguchi and Related Areas). The media exposure the island— officially known as Hashima—received after it was used as a film location for Skyfall, the latest installment in the James Bond 007 series, has led to an increase in foreign tourists. Nagasaki City ended the ban on visitors in 2009 in an effort to use the “haikyo” (urban ruins) of Gunkanjima as a tourism resource. Source: Nishinippon Shimbun 4/20
