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Before resuming our passenger cruise review lets learn a little about Nagasaki, where the Atomic bomb was dropped in World War II. It will make the visit to Nagasaki more interesting
Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture in Japan. It is located on the south-western coast of Kyushu, the southernmost of the four main Japanese islands. It was a center of European influence in medieval Japan from first contact through the isolationist era until the opening of Japan and the resultant modernization of Japan during the Meiji Restoration.
It became a major Imperial Japanese Navy base during the First Sino-Japanese
War and Russo-Japanese War and eventually was the second city on which an atomic
bomb was dropped by the United States during World War II.
Nagasaki lies at the head of a long bay which forms the best natural harbor on
the island of Kyushu. The main commercial and residential area of the city lies
on a small plain near the end of the bay. Two rivers divided by a mountain spur
form the two main valleys in which the city lies. The heavily built-up area of
the city is confined by the terrain to less than 4 square miles.
As of 2004 the population of the city is 447,419 and its size in square
kilometers is 338.72 or about 130 sq. mi making it a fairly large city by
Japanese standards in relation to its population level.
On 9 August 1945, Nagasaki was the target of the world's second atomic
bomb attack at 11:02 a.m., when the north of the city was destroyed and an
estimated 75,000 people were killed.
These are random pictures taken of the harbor and street scenes taken from our
tour bus on the way to the Memorial Peace Park and the Atomic Bomb Museum.