Hashima is a small abandoned island about 9.3 miles (15 km) off the coast of Nagasaki, Japan. The island was continuously inhabited from 1887 to 1974 as a seabed coal mining facility, with a peak population of 5,259 in 1959. However, as petroleum began replacing coal in Japan in the 1960s, the mine was closed and cleared of inhabitants. Its abandoned concrete buildings, undisturbed except by nature, and surrounding seawall make the island an eerie, yet popular, tourist destination.
