What is the World Heritage Site “Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution”?

It is Japan's first Western-style dock, built by Glover and Satsuma samurai for the purpose of repairing foreign ships. It is equipped with a towing device powered by a steam engine, and due to its shape, it is also called the "Solo Bandock".

(Photo provided by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. Nagasaki Shipyard & Machinery Works)
It was built in the late Meiji period after five years of construction by carving out cliffs and reclaiming land from the sea, and was the largest dock in the East at the time. The original electric motor and sump pump are still in operation today, more than 5 years later. ※private

The first hammerhead electric crane built in Japan. It is still in use today when shipping large products. It is the first exported vessel from Scotland and the oldest in operation in the world, and is also popular as a symbol of Nagasaki Port. ※private

This is the oldest existing building at the Nagasaki Shipyard & Machinery Works. It was built as a wooden pattern manufacturing factory for manufacturing molds for cast products. It is currently open to the public as the ``Nagasaki Shipyard & Machinery Museum'' and tells the history of the Nagasaki Shipyard.

(Photo provided by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. Nagasaki Shipyard & Machinery Works)
A two-story wooden Western-style building built on a hill overlooking the No. 2 Dock. It was named with the meaning of ``occupying the scenic beauty''. The building has been used as a state guesthouse to this day, and has been used as a venue for important shipbuilding events. ※private

The remains of a reverberatory furnace built as a prototype at the end of the Edo period. Although they were not successful in the end, it does illustrate the early stage of industrialization, when people tried to incorporate Western technology on their own through trial and error.

These are the ruins of a shipyard built by the Hagi clan at the request of the shogunate. Engineers were dispatched to Izu and Nagasaki to acquire Western-style shipbuilding technology, and two Western-style warships, the Heishinmaru and the Koshinmaru, were built.

These are the ruins of ``Tatara Iron Manufacturing,'' a traditional Japanese iron manufacturing method that was used before the introduction of Western iron manufacturing technology. This shows that Japanese conventional technology at the time was used in the construction of Western-style warships at the end of the Edo period.

Hagi worked on industrialization at the end of the Edo period and formed an industrial culture. The ruins of Hagi Castle, which was the center of politics, and the division of the town into residential areas based on social status, represent the historical background and structure of feudal society at the time.

Matsushitasonjuku, a private school run by Shoin Matsuda, was a place for human resource development in the local community at the time. Many students who inherited Shoin's teachings later played an important role in the process of modernization and industrialization of Japan.

After the Opium War, Japan's first factory complex was built by Shimazu Nariakira, who sensed the threat posed by Western powers. He obtained information on Western technology from Dutch books and self-taught himself to build reverberatory furnaces, machine factories, and spinning mills.

The remains of a charcoal kiln built to produce the charcoal needed for the Shuseikan project. Terayama is a good location because it has a lot of wood suitable for making white charcoal, which generates a higher heat than charcoal, and three charcoal kilns were built there. Currently, one of them remains.

In the early stages of the Shuseikan project, steam engines were still in the research stage and could not be used, so waterwheel power was used. The newly constructed 8km waterway has a height difference of only 8m, testifying to the advanced technology of the time.

After the Opium War, this melting furnace was built to cast iron cannons in conjunction with the construction of artillery batteries for coastal defense against Western powers. It is the only surviving reverberatory furnace in Japan that was actually in operation at the end of the Edo period.

By introducing Western-style blast furnace technology, we succeeded in continuous production of iron using high-quality iron ore mined at the Hashino Iron Mine. In addition to the blast furnace ruins, there are related ruins such as mining pit ruins and transportation route ruins, which are collectively known as the ``Hashino Iron Mine.''

(Photo provided by: Saga Prefecture Tourism Federation)
At the end of the Edo period, this place became the base of the Saga Domain's Western-style navy. Training for human resources, steamship construction, and training to operate Western-style ships were carried out. The dry dock, which was used for repairing Western-style ships at the time, is the oldest existing dry dock in Japan.

The Miike Coal Mine is the second most modernized coal mine in Japan after the Takashima Coal Mine. We introduced a cutting-edge drainage system to the Miike Coal Mine, which has a lot of groundwater, and carried out infrastructure improvements such as the construction of Miike Port and the construction of railways.

One of the three major ports of the Meiji era. The design by a Dutch hydraulic engineer and Japanese civil engineering technology are a perfect fusion. Today, the port still retains its original appearance, which clearly shows how the land was used as a modern trading port during the Meiji era.

This steelworks was built by the Meiji government, risking national prestige, to manufacture domestically produced steel as the demand for steel increased. We established a system to increase the production of materials on a large scale, and laid the foundation for the Japanese economy. The steelworks factory is still in use and is not open to the public, but you can see the exterior of the former main office from the viewing area.

This brick building was built as a facility to transport the large amount of water needed to make iron from the Onga River to the Yawata Steel Works. The power source has changed from steam to electricity, but it continues to operate today.