The Story: Nagasaki and the World
Dejima — The Last Open Door
When the Tokugawa Shogunate closed Japan to the world in 1635, one exception was made: Dejima, a fan-shaped artificial island of just 13,000 square metres in Nagasaki Harbour. For 214 years, it was the single point of legal contact between Japan and the outside world. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) operated its Japan headquarters here, running a trading route that connected Nagasaki directly to Batavia (present-day Jakarta) — and through that route, to the rest of Asia and Europe.
A Life Between Two Countries
In 1621, Wakita Cornelia — known as Princess Anio — arrived in Nagasaki from the Vietnamese trading port of Hoi An. Born to a Japanese merchant father and a Vietnamese mother, she spent her entire life in this city and is buried at Honren-ji Temple in the Teramachi district. Her story represents one of the oldest documented Vietnamese-Japanese human connections in recorded history — a thread of two cultures woven together in a single life, in a single city.
The Hill of Nishizaka
On the hill of Nishizaka, seven minutes on foot from Nagasaki Station, Lorenzo Ruiz — a Filipino-Chinese layperson born in Manila — was martyred in 1637. In 1987, Pope John Paul II canonised him as the first Filipino saint in history. In November 2019, Pope Francis visited Nishizaka Park and offered prayers at the same site. The Twenty-Six Martyrs Museum stands here, and the figure of Lorenzo Ruiz stands at its entrance — a Filipino face, in a Japanese city, remembered by the world.
A City That Inhabits Its History
Nagasaki does not archive its international past — it lives in it. The city's tram lines pass the entrances to Glover Garden, Urakami Cathedral, and the Peace Park on a single route. The Nagasaki Museum of History and Culture holds original VOC documents and a celadon collection traded via the Dejima route. Japan's oldest Chinatown — dating to the 17th century — remains an active neighbourhood, not a museum exhibit. The layers are intact. They are walkable. And most visitors never reach them.
📌 A sport born in these streets:
Indonesian servants brought to Nagasaki by Dutch merchants introduced an early form of badminton to Japan during the Edo period. A stone monument — "Birthplace of Badminton in Japan" — stands near Dejima to this day. A sport now played by 200 million people worldwide traces one of its earliest roots to this city.