is an island in

Sagami Bay lies south of Kanagawa Prefecture in Honshu, central Japan, contained within the scope of the Miura Peninsula, in Kanagawa, to the east, the Izu Peninsula, in Shizuoka Prefecture, to the west, and the Shōnan coastline to the north, while the i ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. Administratively, it is part of the city of

Atami is a city located in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 36,865 in 21,593 households

Shizuoka Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Shizuoka Prefecture has a population of 3,555,818 and has a geographic area of . Shizuoka Prefecture borders Kanagawa Prefecture to the east, Yamanashi Pref ...

, 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 volcanic eruption. An eruption that ejects large volumes of magma over a short period of time can cause significant detriment to the str ...

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 1923 Great Kantō earthquake (, or ) was a major earthquake that struck the Kantō Plain on the main Japanese island of Honshu at 11:58:32 JST (02:58:32 UTC) on Saturday, 1 September 1923. It had an approximate magnitude of 8.0 on the mom ...

History

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

Jōmon period In Japanese history, the is the time between , during which Japan was inhabited by the Jōmon people, a diverse hunter-gatherer and early agriculturalist population united by a common culture, which reached a considerable degree of sedentism an ...

have been found in the island's interior. It is mentioned in poetry by

Minamoto no Sanetomo was the third ''shōgun'' of the Kamakura shogunate. He was the second son of the Kamakura shogunate founder, Minamoto no Yoritomo. His mother was Hōjō Masako and his older brother was the second Kamakura shogun Minamoto no Yoriie. His child ...

during the

Kamakura period The is a period of History of Japan, Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura, Kanagawa, Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the G ...

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

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

. In 1913, the future

Emperor of Japan The emperor of Japan is the hereditary monarch and head of state of Japan. The emperor is defined by the Constitution of Japan as the symbol of the Japanese state and the unity of the Japanese people, his position deriving from "the will of ...

Hirohito , Posthumous name, posthumously honored as , was the 124th emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession, from 25 December 1926 until Death and state funeral of Hirohito, his death in 1989. He remains Japan's longest-reigni ...

visited the island to pursue his hobby of

marine biology Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms that inhabit the sea. Given that in biology many scientific classification, phyla, family (biology), families and genera have some species that live in the sea and ...

. The writer

Akiko Yosano , known by her pen name Yosano Akiko (Shinjitai: , Kyūjitai: , ), was a Japanese author, poet, feminist, pacifist, and social reformer, active in the late Meiji era as well as the Taishō and early Shōwa eras of Japan. She is one of the most ...

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 , commonly abbreviated as Fujikyu, is a passenger transportation company headquartered in Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi, Japan. The company operates the Fujikyuko Line railway and regional and long-distance bus routes. The company also operates the ...

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 the country's economy stagnated. The bubble was characterized by rapid acceler ...

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