Nagasaki

Nagasaki is often called the "little Rome" of Japan. The largest Christian community in the country lives in it, and the number of local churches exceeds the number of Shinto shrines and Buddhist monasteries combined. In the XVII-XIX centuries, the port city of Nagasaki was for the Japanese "a window to Europe." It was through him that western know-how, as well as various overseas wonders from China, Southeast Asia, India and Arab countries, fell into the archipelago.

Nagasaki is the second city in the world after Hiroshima to suffer from a nuclear bombing . Residents of the city are known for their active participation in antinuclear actions and disarmament movements.

Today, Nagasaki is one of Japan's most popular tourist destinations. It is known as a picturesque port city, in which Japanese traditions are harmoniously combined with the Western Christian worldview.

The emblem of Nagasaki is a stylized cursive form of the sign 長 ( naga , "long" ), the first sign in the name of the city. This emblem resembles a star-shaped paper crane . It is associated with the city port, which, due to its shape, was called the “crane port”.

Inside the star there are five signs 市 ( city ), arranged in a circle. They symbolize that Nagasaki was one of the five Japanese ports that were open to trade with the Western world in the mid-19th century after a bicentennial era of isolation of the country . The flag of Nagasaki is a white cloth, the sides of which are correlated as 2 to 3. In the center of the cloth there is a red city emblem.

Nagasaki flower emblem - large-leaved hydrangea . She is endemic to the Japanese archipelago. It was opened for the Western world by a German physician, Philipp Franz von Siebold , who was in Nagasaki in the early 19th century. He named this flower Hydrangea otakusa after his beloved Taki, a resident of this city.

The greasy tree is a symbol tree of Nagasaki. This is a plant of Chinese origin. In the 18th century, overseas merchants brought it to Nagasaki, the only port through which trade was carried out with China and the Western powers. It was through Nagasaki that the cultivation of this tree spread throughout Japan.

The city is located on two peninsulas - Nagasaki and Nishi Sonogi ^[4] . Its neighbors are the cities of Isahaya in the east and Saykai in the north, as well as the villages of Togitsu and Nagayo in the northeast. In the west and south, Nagasaki is washed by the East China Sea.

The city is located around the elongated Nagasaki Bay, which is surrounded by mountains from the west, north and east. The historical center of Nagasaki is located in the coastal zone in the eastern part, and residential areas - Menoto, Mihara, Honbara, Nishiyama, Sunao, Kosima, Inasa, Koebaru, Nishimati, Nameshi - are located in the mountains. Due to this situation, Nagasaki is known in Japan as the "city on the descent" or "terrace city".

Two rivers flow through the city, flowing into the waters of the port of Nagasaki - Urakami from the north and Nakajima from the north-east.

Climate

The average annual temperature is +17.4 ° C (from + 28 ° C in the summer to + 7 ° C in the winter). About 1678 mm of precipitation falls annually. A warm ocean current has a strong influence on the climate in the city, because of which the difference between the cold and warm seasons is less felt here than in other cities on the island of Kyushu.

Nagasaki is located in the subtropical monsoon climate, typical of the islands of Kyushu and Honshu. In addition to Kanazawa and Shizuoka, it is the wettest big city in Japan. In summer, heat and humidity are especially strong (June – July). In winter, the weather is drier and sunny. In recent years, more and more snow has been falling.

Since the start of the registration of climate change in Nagasaki since 1878, the wettest month was July 1982 with 1,178 mm (555 mm per day), while the driest month was September 1967 (1.8 mm per day).

In the second half of the 16th century, during the time of active contacts between the West and the Japanese, the territory of the modern city of Nagasaki was in the hands of the samurai specific ruler Omura Sumitada . In order to develop trade with the Europeans, he adopted Christianity and founded port settlements on his lands, including Nagasaki. In 1570, a port was equipped in it, and in 1571 , with the arrival of the first European ship from Portugal , a village was built ^[5] . In 1580, Omura transferred control of Nagasaki to the Jesuits, and two years later sent an embassy to Rome from the local port. Thanks to the successful missionary activities of the Society of Jesus, almost the entire population of the northern regions of Kyushu Island became Christians. Until the beginning of the 17th century, Nagasaki played the role of one of the main mission centers in Japan and was an important center of European-Japanese trade.

In 1587, Japan's unifier Toyotomi Hideyoshi conquered Kyushu and forbade the presence of Christian priests and monks in the country. The following year, he took the city of Nagasaki from the Jesuits, subordinating it directly to the central authorities. In 1592, the Nagasaki Detachment Institute was established here, which monitored international trade and missionaries in Japan. In order to intimidate the latter in 1596, 26 Christians were crucified on a high hill in Nagasaki.

With the establishment of the Edo Shogunate in Japan, the persecution of Christianity intensified. In 1614, the government banned the practice of this faith throughout the country. In 1622, the central authorities carried out a demonstration execution of 55 Christians in Nagasaki and destroyed all 16 churches of the city. To identify supporters of the forbidden faith, petty bourgeoisie were obliged to go through the process of trampling the holy images every year, without fail. In 1635, the authorities prohibited the Japanese from leaving the country, and in 1636 they forcibly resettled all Nagasaki Europeans, among whom the Portuguese predominated, on the artificial island of Dejima , in order to isolate the country's population from contacts with the West. After the Christian uprising in Shimabar in 1637 , the shogunate restricted the arrival of European ships in Japan, making an exception only for Protestant Holland , which helped to suppress the uprising and pledged not to spread Christianity . The Dutch were forced to live on the island of Dejima reservation, with a ban on leaving it. Thus, in 1641, the Japanese authorities established Japan’s isolation from the West, turning Nagasaki into the only “window” of communication with him.

By the middle of the 19th century, Nagasaki was the only international port in which power allowed trade with the Dutch East India Company and Chinese merchants. Through it, rare goods such as coffee , potatoes , or ginseng , or such foreign games as badminton or bowling, got to Japan. Thanks to active trade, the city flourished and was one of the richest in Japan, but after the government set a limit on the import of goods in 1715, Nagasaki's economic growth stopped. Despite the economic downturn, the city remained an important educational center in Japan, where foreign languages ​​and the “Dutch sciences” rangaku were studied , in particular European medicine.

With the beginning of the 19th century, European states entered into a colonial race. Ships of Russia, Britain, the United States began to enter Nagasaki more often, demanding that the government put an end to the policy of isolation. Due to the inability to resist the onslaught from outside and the weakening of the shogunate’s power inside the country, in 1859 the local port was finally proclaimed open to ships of foreign states. This allowed the modernization of Nagasaki. It was here that the first Japanese railway, telegraph, and English-language newspaper appeared. Europeans and Americans built the southern part of the city in the Oura area. They assisted anti-government forces in Japan and contributed to the success of the Meiji restoration . Thanks to the activities of the Western embassies in the country, a two-hundred-year ban on Christianity was lifted, and most of the inhabitants of Nagasaki, who secretly professed faith in Christ, were able to openly return to the fold of the Church.

On June 20, 1869, Nagasaki became the administrative center of the prefecture of the same name, and on April 1, 1889, it officially received the status of a city. It gradually turned into one of the main centers of the Japanese steel industry and shipbuilding. Nagasaki's achievements were presented at the International Exhibition of Industry and Tourism, held in 1934 .

World War II and Nuclear Bombing

Nagasaki was never bombarded before a nuclear bomb exploded . However, on August 1, 1945, several high-explosive bombs were dropped there. Some of these bombs hit the shipyards and docks of the southwestern part of the city. Some fell into the steel and arms factories of Mitsubishi ; six bombs - to the Medical School and the hospital and three of them - directly to these buildings. While the damage from this attack was relatively small, they created considerable concern in Nagasaki and some people, mostly schoolchildren, were evacuated to rural areas, so the city population was reduced by the time of the atomic attack.

On the morning of August 9, at about 7:50 a.m. Japanese time, an air alert sounded in Nagasaki, canceled at 8:30 a.m. People left the shelters. When at 10:53 two flying B-29 fortresses (American bombers) fell into sight, the Japanese allegedly mistook them for reconnaissance and did not give a new alarm. Nevertheless, a lot of people, noticing the planes, ran for cover, because after the bombing on August 1 they believed that strong raids were being prepared for the city.

A few minutes later, at 11:00, the observational B-29 dropped the unit with measuring equipment in three parachutes, and at 11:02 another plane dropped the Fat man atomic bomb with a blast power of 21 kilotons of TNT. The bomb exploded high above the Nagasaki industrial valley, almost halfway between Mitsubishi's steel and arms production to the south, and Mitsubishi's torpedo factory, Uraki to the north, the two main targets in the city.

This was the second (after Hiroshima ) US nuclear attack on Japan, and it led to catastrophic destruction and mass casualties: about 74,000 people were killed and about 51,000 buildings were destroyed.

Mayor

In April 2007, Nagasaki’s mayor, Itte Ito, was shot dead as a result of an assassination attempt by a member of the local mafia ( yakuza ) ^[6] . No one else was hurt.

In 2004, Nagasaki's population was 447,419 residents in a total of 338.72 square kilometers.

Nagasaki is one of the industrial centers of the Kyushu region. The city is divided into 4 economic regions: central, Urakami, Sumiyoshi and Higashi .

Since the second half of the XIX century, Nagasaki is the largest center of shipbuilding in Japan. The shipyards of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries - Nagasaki Shipyard & Machinery Works ( 三菱 重工 長崎 造船 所 ), the main shipbuilding division of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries , today primarily produce specialized commercial vessels, including vessels for transporting liquefied natural gases. ^[7] Until the end of World War II , military ships were also produced here.

After World War II, the electrical and engineering industries developed in Nagasaki. In the city, factories were built that produce all kinds of equipment - from simple engines to first-class complex machine tools and machines. Mitsubishi Electric retains the leading role in this area. ^[eight]

Other branches of the Nagasaki industry are the food (including canning ), metallurgical, textile, petrochemical, and sawmill industries. Near Nagasaki is a coal basin

The leading regional bank, founded in 1877, is The Eighteenth Bank, Limited (18th state bank), with 30 branches. Another significant regional bank is Nagasakiginko with 11 branches.

Transport in Nagasaki includes an airport in the suburbs of Omura , a port , a railway , an electric tram and a bus terminal. The city also has a cable car (funicular) to Inasa Mountain.

Education and science

• Nagasaki University

Religion

Nagasaki and the prefecture are home to the largest Christian community in Japan. ^[9]

For more than two centuries during the isolation of Japan , Nagasaki was the only port through which limited trade was conducted with the Dutch and Chinese . ^[10] Although Protestant Dutch did not spread Christianity so zealously, nevertheless, all contacts were possible exclusively through Nagasaki. The city is known for the execution of 26 martyrs . The punishment lasted until the official permission of religious freedom in 1873 . Even after the first years of Meiji restoration in the 1860s, executions of Christians were recorded in Nagasaki.

Events

• Nagasaki Kunti
• Lantern Festival in Nagasaki

Attractions