is a Japanese island in the

Seto Inland Sea The , sometimes shortened to the Inland Sea, is the body of water separating Honshū, Shikoku, and Kyūshū, three of the four main islands of Japan. It serves as a waterway connecting the Pacific Ocean to the Sea of Japan. It connects to Osaka ...

, located near the coast of

Okayama Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Okayama Prefecture has a population of 1,906,464 (1 February 2018) and has a geographic area of 7,114 Square kilometre, km2 (2,746 sq mi). Okayama Prefectur ...

. It is part of

Higashi-ku, Okayama is one of four wards of Okayama, Okayama Prefecture, Japan. The ward has an area of 160.28 km² and a population of 96,718. The population density is 603 per square kilometer. The name means "East Ward." The wards of Okayama were establis ...

. , Inujima has a population of 47.

Access from mainland

A ferry service operates between Hōden and Inujima.

Industrial heritage

A copper refinery was opened on the island in 1909, but this closed in 1919. The brick-built refinery remained largely undemolished, and from 2008, it formed the centrepiece of a large-scale art project designed to stimulate tourism to the island.

Inujima Art Project

The is a rehabilitation project covering the entire island by the Naoshima Fukutake Art Museum Foundation, a project of

Benesse Corporation is a Japanese company which focuses on correspondence education and publishing. Based in Okayama-City, it is the parent company of Berlitz Language Schools, which in turn is the parent company of ELS Language Centers. Benesse is listed on the ...

. It opened to the public in April 2008. The first phase of the project was to turn the old ''seirensho'' refinery into a model of contemporary architecture and art to recycle the Japanese industrial heritage. It was the coordinated efforts of the architect Hiroshi Sambuichi and Yukinori Yanagi who collaborated with the architect in his artwork, and the Faculty of Environmental Science and Technology at

Okayama University is a national university in Japan. The main campus is located in Tsushima-Naka, Okayama, Okayama Prefecture. The school was founded in 1870 and it was established as a university in 1949. History Okayama University was originally founded as t ...

Population data

The population of the island has changed over the years as follows.

Film locations

* '' Seibu Keisatsu'' (July 1984)

References

External links

Benesse Art Site Naoshima

(Okayama Prefectural International Tourism Association) {{Authority control Islands of Okayama Prefecture Benesse Contemporary art galleries in Japan Modernist architecture in Japan Art museums established in 2008