The Port of Nagoya, Ujina, Kobe, and Otaru: old photographs and today's shore

Published: September 10, 2026 / About 14 min read

The outline of the quays remained, and only the inside was replaced

If you step through the aerial photographs of a port from the oldest era on, something similar happens at every port. The straight lines of the seawalls and the positions of the breakwaters hardly move, yet only the things inside them are replaced wholesale. The rows of long, narrow transit sheds disappear, the sidings that spread in a fan shape shrink to a few, and the enclosures that partitioned the water are filled and become land. Because the frame does not change, the differences when you switch eras are limited to the replacement of the contents, which actually makes them easier to read.

The six places lined up here are Nagoya Port Garden Pier, Ujina / Hiroshima Port District, Kobe Harborland, Otaru-Chikko, Arcaport, and Mojiko Retro. The number of eras you can trace in photographs differs by port, from two eras to six, and that is exactly where the ways of reading divide. At ports with many eras the middle of the replacement appears, and at ports with only two eras you have to estimate by bracketing it from before and after.

What appears in the oldest photograph

On the shores of the era when cargo was handled, there are four clues that appear in common. The first is the row of long, narrow warehouses called transit sheds, whose large roofs facing the same direction line up parallel to the water's edge. The second is the bundle of tracks spreading like a fan behind them, with freight cars appearing as rows of dots between the lines. The third is enclosures that partitioned the water, where pale bundles of the same length can be seen floating in many rows. The natural reading is that these were places where timber was kept floating on the water. The fourth is the ships and wakes scattered over the sea, a mix of large ships anchored offshore and small boats that have left the shore.

If you find at each port the era in which all four appear together, the photographs after it can be read as differences. Did the transit sheds disappear, did the bundle of tracks thin out, or did the water inside the enclosures become land? The one of the three that happened first differs by port, and that is where the history of the shore shows.

The Port of Nagoya: the era when the east side of the jetties became land

Nagoya Port Garden Pier has photographs from six eras, so it is a port where you can follow the replacement partway through. The port authority's materials record that the Port of Nagoya was opened in 1907. In the 1945-50 photograph, three or four narrow jetties stick out from the water's edge into the sea like the teeth of a comb, with long, narrow white transit sheds on top of them. The jetties are only about one building wide. In 1961-69 the positions stay the same, and each building on them becomes visibly larger.

The shape itself changes in 1979-83. As the east side was filled beside the narrow jetties, the water that had been gaps became wide, square land, and bright large roofs were placed on it. The procedure of filling between the sea surface and the jetties to make one continuous surface appears in a single photograph just as it is. In 1987-90 buildings and wide paving were laid out on top of it, and in 1992 the aquarium's South Building opened. In the photograph as of 2026 there are hardly any ships on the sea, landing piers and green lots that look like lawn line up, and the place is within walking distance of Nagoyako Station on the Nagoya Municipal Subway Meiko Line. The texture value of the photograph increased from 16.2 to 35.2.

Ujina: enclose the tidal flats, fill the inner harbor water

The shore of Ujina / Hiroshima Port District was made by closing off tidal flats. According to materials of the City of Hiroshima, the construction of Ujina Port began in July 1884 and was completed in 1889. In the 1945-50 photograph, the left half of the frame is still tidal flats, with tidal stripes and sand ripples running all over, and a thin white line passes through it, making corners. In 1961-69 that white line bends at right angles twice in the sea, and short white rows cluster inside the enclosure. It is the shape of work that turns sea into land, partway through.

In 1974-78, only this location has a large gap in the photograph, and there is no orthophoto coverage from the middle of the frame downward. Not a single pixel of the harbor waters and the southern half of the tidal flats appears, so when you step through the eras you skip this photograph and move on to 1979-83. There the tidal flats are replaced by blocks lined with rectangular roofs, and in 1987-90 a square water surface enclosed by the blocks appears, with a quay jutting far out into it. A round bank surrounded by a ring of trees and a flat plaza stand in the same position as of 2026. The water of the inner harbor was filled and became a park, and the texture value changed from 24 to 45.8. The tram line that reaches the sea's edge is the Ujina Line of Hiroshima Electric Railway, and the terminal is the Hiroshima Port stop.

Kobe: the photograph in which a corner of the sidings becomes cleared land

Kobe Harborland is a port where the eras of the photographs agree with the years of the records. In the 1945-50 photograph, beyond where the town ends, many long, narrow transit sheds line up in parallel, and behind them the tracks spread like a fan, with rows of freight cars stopped on them. In 1961-69 the buildings appear one size larger, and a dark water surface enclosed in a square remains on the north side of the transit sheds. When color arrives in 1974-78, you can see that the roofs are painted in pale gray and green, and in 1979-83 the roofs on the jetty change to red and fine dots that look like rows of cars increase along the edge of the pier.

The turning point is 1984-86. The rows of transit sheds remain, but on the inland side, the sidings that spread in a fan shape have a corner turned into cleared land. The functions of the Minatogawa Freight Station of Japanese National Railways, which had been placed on this shore, stopped in November 1982, the nickname of the former site was decided in October 1984, and the town opening was in September 1992. The era in which cleared land appears in the photographs and the year the freight station ended its role overlap with a difference of about two years. As of 2026, box-shaped buildings and wide paving line up where the rows of transit sheds stood, and the cuts between the narrow jetties have been filled so that the shoreline is smooth. Harborland Station on the Kobe Municipal Subway Kaigan Line is underground, and the texture value increased from 17.9 to 47.3.

Bracket ports with only two eras of photographs from before and after

At the three places Otaru-Chikko, Arcaport, and Mojiko Retro, the photographs you can trace are only two eras, 1961-69 and 1974-78. At these three ports the character of the shore changed from the 1980s into the 1990s, so the middle does not appear in the photographs. Only one way of reading is left. You bracket it from before and after with the two eras of old photographs and the photograph as of 2026, and fill in what happened in between with the records of the years.

When you read by bracketing, the gap actually looks larger. This is because the number of tracks and the number of warehouse buildings you counted in the 1974-78 photograph are replaced wholesale by something else in the next photograph you look at. In exchange for not being able to check the shapes in between as at ports with five or more eras, the difference between before and after itself becomes the clue. Whichever way you read, first align the pixel positions using the seawalls and breakwaters that do not move as landmarks.

Otaru-Chikko: what stands on the yard grounds where sorting stopped

In the 1961-69 photograph of Otaru-Chikko, the railway rather than the port plays the leading role. Dozens of thin lines run in parallel in a band along the shore, and freight cars held between them appear as rows of dots. Offshore, long, narrow breakwaters extend in two tiers, and inside the enclosure pale bundles of the same length float in many rows, drawing arcs. In 1974-78 color arrives, and toward the west of the band you can read a circle, a ring surrounding it, and short lines radiating from the ring. It is the shape of a device for turning locomotives around.

When the method of transport that gathered and sorted freight cars was abolished in the mid-1980s, the yard grounds where sorting stopped no longer needed their size itself. The bundle of lines that had extended long and narrow along the coast shrank to a few, and flat land opened up right in front of the town. In March 1999 a large commercial facility opened there, and in the photograph as of 2026 flat large roofs continue diagonally, and white boats line up at the landing piers on the water enclosed by jetties. It is a commercial shore where a place for shopping and a boat landing are packed side by side, and the texture value increased from 19 to 46. Former rail yards that followed the same course are found in many places, and Kita-Nagase in Okayama is one of them.

Shimonoseki and Mojiko: hills rise behind both shores of the strait

On both shores of the Kanmon Strait, the narrowness of the flat land shows directly in the elevation. At Arcaport, the center is 2.4 m and the north 2.2 m, almost flat, yet only the line heading west climbs to 28.4 m. On the opposite shore, Mojiko Retro is also a band with the center at 3.4 m, the west at 2.5 m, and the east at 4.6 m, and toward the south it jumps up to 24.5 m. The two shores share the framework that the flat land is as narrow as a band.

New faces appear in the 1974-78 photographs on both shores at the same time. On the Shimonoseki side, orange bare ground appears here and there on the slopes of the hills, and small houses line up on lots made by cutting steps. It is the look of a town that no longer fit in the narrow band, partway through escaping to higher ground. On the Mojiko side, a long bridge girder crosses the top edge of the frame. In 1961-69 the same position has only water and a cape, so if you switch eras the difference is clear at a glance. Later, an aquarium run by the City of Shimonoseki opened at Arcaport in April 2001, and at Mojiko, Mojiko Retro had its grand opening in March 1995. Both are events after the two eras of photographs, and they can only be read by bracketing with the photograph as of 2026. The texture value increased from 14.6 to 36.1 at Shimonoseki and from 18.7 to 33 at Mojiko.

Center elevations fit in a range from 1.8 m to 3.4 m

The center elevations of the six places fall between 1.8 m and 3.4 m. Since these are surfaces made by reclamation and by land reclamation by drainage, they also share the fact that the height hardly varies inside the location. The differences come at the measuring points in the four directions: at the Port of Nagoya and Kobe even the highest measuring point does not reach 4 m, whereas at Arcaport and Mojiko values in the 20 m range line up. The difference in the width of the flat land at the sea's edge can be seen in this one row.

The very fact that some directions have no value also tells you about the outline. There is no value to the south at Ujina, to the south and east at Arcaport, to the north and east at Otaru-Chikko, and to the north at Mojiko, because in those directions there is water, not land. For how far water is assumed to come on low land near the shore, the Hazard Map Portal Site of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism gathers the published materials of each local government.

The official land price records trace a different direction at each port

The official land price (Chika Koji) records are measured not at the shore itself but in the residential areas behind it. The distance from the location varies by port: the points used are about 440 m from Mojiko Retro, about 550 m from Kobe Harborland, about 700 m from Nagoya Port Garden Pier, about 990 m from Otaru-Chikko, about 1.2 km from Arcaport, and about 1.3 km from Ujina. If you line up the records up to the 2026 publication, the directions of the lines split three to three.

The three places the Port of Nagoya / Ujina / Kobe keep falling from the start of the record, bottom out (Ujina in 2006 and 2012, Kobe in 2015-16, the Port of Nagoya in 2018-19), and come back from there toward 2026. At Ujina, up to the 2026 publication the highest is 385,000 yen in 1993 and the lowest is 166,000 yen in both 2006 and 2012; 2026 is 257,000 yen. The three places Otaru-Chikko / Arcaport / Mojiko Retro have a different sequence of figures, and at Mojiko Retro the lowest value in the records up to the 2026 publication comes in the final year, 2026. The replacement on the shore of a port and the figures of the residential area behind it do not trace the same direction.

Step through the eras to check the shape of the shore

Photographs of shores become material for comparison thanks to the property that their outlines do not move. Within the same frame, if you follow the order in which the transit sheds disappeared, the bundles of tracks thinned out, and the water inside the enclosures became land, you can see how long that port was mainly a cargo port. At ports with five or more eras, a photograph from the middle holds that answer, and at ports with two eras the gap between before and after stands in for the answer.

Closely related ground is covered by towns that used to be sea for an overview of land born of reclamation, the terrain of dug-in ports for the shapes of ports made by digging in, and An elevation comparison for comparing elevations. On the location pages you can switch eras and check, one photograph at a time, what sat at the same position on the same shore. First go back and forth between the 1961-69 photograph and the photograph as of 2026, and try to find first the lines that did not move.

The prices in this article are actual examples at each point in time and do not reflect market prices after the article was written.