is an island in Sagami Bay,

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. Administratively, it is part of the city of Atami,

Shizuoka Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Shizuoka Prefecture has a population of 3,637,998 and has a geographic area of . Shizuoka Prefecture borders Kanagawa Prefecture to the east, Yamanashi Prefecture to the northea ...

, from which it can be reached by ferry. The island is approximately 10 kilometers from the ferry landing in downtown Atami. The island is inhabited, with the population mostly residing on the northern side of the island. As of 2018, the island had a population of 193 people in 114 households.

Geology

Hatsushima is located within the

caldera A caldera ( ) is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcano eruption. When large volumes of magma are erupted over a short time, structural support for the rock above the magma chamber is ...

forming Atami Bay, and was created by an uplift of the seafloor due to volcanic activity. This uplifting has occurred many times in the island's geological history, as evidenced by the many terraces formed by various uplifts. The elevation of the island is above sea level, and the island grew in height approximately two meters as a result of the

1923 Great Kantō earthquake The struck the Kantō Plain on the main Japanese island of Honshū at 11:58:44 JST (02:58:44 UTC) on Saturday, September 1, 1923. Varied accounts indicate the duration of the earthquake was between four and ten minutes. Extensive firestorms an ...

History

Hatsushima has been inhabited since prehistoric times, and remains from the

Jōmon period The is the time in Japanese history, traditionally dated between 6,000–300 BCE, during which Japan was inhabited by a diverse hunter-gatherer and early agriculturalist population united through a common Jōmon culture, which reached a c ...

have been found in the island's interior. It is mentioned in poetry by Minamoto no Sanetomo during the

Kamakura period The is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the Genpei War, which saw the struggle bet ...

, and per records dated 1351, the island had 18 households. This grew to 41 households by 1830 during the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

. In 1913, the future

Emperor of Japan The Emperor of Japan is the monarch and the head of the Imperial House of Japan, Imperial Family of Japan. Under the Constitution of Japan, he is defined as the symbol of the Japanese state and the unity of the Japanese people, and his positio ...

Hirohito Emperor , commonly known in English-speaking countries by his personal name , was the 124th emperor of Japan, ruling from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. Hirohito and his wife, Empress Kōjun, had two sons and five daughters; he was ...

visited the island to pursue his hobby of

marine biology Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms in the sea. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies s ...

. The writer Akiko Yosano spent several months on the island in 1923, later publishing a diary of her experiences and comments that the culture of the island retained many traditional aspects which had now vanished from the mainland. Tourist development of the island began in 1964 with efforts by the Fuji Kyuko railway to develop hotels, campgrounds and leisure facilities. In the 1980s, during the

Japanese asset price bubble The was an economic bubble in Japan from 1986 to 1991 in which real estate and stock market prices were greatly inflated. In early 1992, this price bubble burst and Japan's economy stagnated. The bubble was characterized by rapid acceleration ...

an investment group attempted to overcome the island's objections to selling their land by making them shareholders in a venture company which intended to turn most of the island into a self-contained resort; however, the venture went bankrupt in 1999.

Attractions

*Hatsushima Oceanographic Museum

References

External links

Hatsushima Oceanographic Museum

{{Authority control Islands of Shizuoka Prefecture Atami, Shizuoka