Hashima Island: Visit the Abandoned Battleship Island in Japan If You Dare

A bleak shadow beaten by the rough Pacific seas and winds. A ghost island that towers about 20km above Japanese waters just off the shores of Nagasaki, defended by huge concrete dams. A pile of rundown buildings with eviscerated fronts.

Welcome to Hashima, a small island that looks like a military ship, that used to be the most densely populated area on the planet during the sixties.

At the end of the XIX century, the Japanese discovered a huge carbon reserve on the island and they started to exploit it and set up a colony there.

Within almost a century, the island measuring 480 meters long and 160 meters wide, saw its population grow to become the most densely populated area in the world in 1960 with 5,300 inhabitants spread out of 6.3 hectares of land. It was also used as a concentration camp where Chinese and Korean prisoners were forced to work during the Japanese occupation of these countries between 1910 and 1932.

Visiting the island was forbidden until 2009 after it was abandoned for good in 1974 when the mine was closed.

Nowadays, travel agencies organise trips to visit the ghostly and exciting island which is very risky and dangerous due to the shaky buildings and rusty objects sticking out of every piece of concrete. The island has also been the victim of multiple typhoons throughout the years.

Hashima became famous when it featured in the James Bond film Skyfall as well as Inception.