Sixty years of the Osaka Bay shore: changes through reclamation and redevelopment

Published: August 11, 2026 / About 15 min read

If you set the aerial photographs of the 1960s beside the images as of 2026, the waterfront surrounding Osaka Bay presents a contrast so sharp that it is hard to believe it is the same place. Offices and residential buildings stand on water where only ships floated, and lots once filled with storage tanks and freight sidings have turned into towns of tourism and commerce. The way they were replaced, however, is not uniform. This article lines up the bay shore from Osaka to Amagasaki / Kobe / Senshu using three clues, the eras of the photographs / the measured elevations / the series of official land prices (Chika Koji), and follows how many patterns the change falls into.

Blocks set on water where ships floated

Sakishima in the City of Osaka is the place where the change on the bay shore shows most sharply. In the aerial photograph from around 1928, the position of Cosmo Square is water all over, and no land appears. The long, narrow white shapes scattered on the water are moored ships, and you can count dozens of them. The thin line running diagonally is a breakwater built in the sea, and it remains in the same position and the same shape in both 1974-78 and 1984-86.

If you step through the eras, you can follow the front of the reclamation. In 1961-69 a graded surface edged with straight seawalls appears at the lower right of the frame, and in 1974-78 a wide area at the lower right becomes bare ground, with water enclosed by seawalls anticipating the shape of the port. In 1984-86 the northern half of the island takes shape, rows of containers line up southwest of the flat area in the center, and only the breakwater still extends into the sea to the north. The lot lines drawn on the sea became blocks after this: the Asia and Pacific Trade Center (ATC) opened in 1994, and in 1997 the railway was extended to the northern end and Cosmo Square Station opened. The mean pixel difference between the 1961-69 photograph and the image as of 2026 is 89.6, the largest among the listed locations. The elevation is low and flat, 4.3 m at the center.

Nanko Port Town, on the south side of the same Sakishima, was graded as a town for living in. In 1961-69 the inside of a wide graded surface enclosed by seawalls is bare ground holding water, with neither lots nor roads. In 1974-78 roads and lots run through it, and warehouses and cargo handling equipment line the quay on the north side. In 1979-83 slab-shaped residential buildings stand with their orientation aligned, and the New Tram, a new transit system, opened in 1981. In 1984-86 a round sports ground and green space are added, and the skeleton of the town is complete.

The same order appears in the numbers. The texture value, which shows how finely detailed the photograph is, rises from 8.8 in 1961-69 to 48.4 as of 2026, and the increase of 39.6 is the largest among the listed locations. This is because a frame that was uniform water was finely cut up by the layout of the buildings, street trees, and school grounds. The elevation ranges from 2.7 to 7.7 m depending on the measurement point, and surfaces reclaimed at different times lie next to each other. The official land price for warehouse land bottomed out in 2013 and more than doubled by 2026. The rise after that is far steeper than the fall in the first few years.

Shores where the inside of the walls was replaced

Some shores replaced industrial land that already existed on the waterfront instead of adding land in the sea. In the area of Universal City, long, narrow buildings lined the left bank of the Aji River around 1928, and the area was filled with the grounds of factories and the railway. The photograph from around 1936-42 shows rows of roofs with many notches and round storage tanks on the shore, and thin branching streaks spread over the water at the upper left. They are the pattern of tidal flats at low tide, and that area is land in the image as of 2026. In 1945-50 the roofs have disappeared from the right bank of the river, and only the grid of streets remains on a bright surface.

In the 1961-69 photograph, clusters of round storage tanks and dug-in water are the main features; in 1979-83 a bundle of tracks converges toward the southeast, and in 1984-86 rows of white boxes line up along the quay. A theme park and a hotel district appeared on the shore where the factory walls had disappeared in 2001, and a railway station also opened in the same year. The texture value rose from 18.3 to 50.6. The elevation at the center is -0.2 m, the lowest among the listed locations, and the northern measurement point is -1.2 m. You can read from both the photographs and the numbers that the land is low, but you cannot read disaster scenarios from these numbers. The official land price for residential land rose only gently over 13 years, and the gap between the endpoints is on the small side.

The corner of Kobe Harborland lies behind Kobe Station, which opened in 1874. In 1945-50 long, narrow transit sheds stand in parallel on the shore, and freight sidings spread in a fan shape behind them. In 1984-86 a corner of the sidings has become earth-colored cleared land, and the water between the jetties is also turning into land. After the freight station was closed, the site opened as a town in 1992, and in 2001 the Kobe Municipal Subway Kaigan Line began running there. The mean pixel difference is 28.6. The elevation is low, 2 m at the center, and among the official land prices for residential land up to the 2026 publication, 275,000 yen in 1995 is the highest; in 2026 the price is 158,000 yen, a level just under 60% of 1995.

Roofs standing on the sites of storage tanks and factories

Changes of use have also happened a little inland from the shore. Around 1928, the grounds of Kyocera Dome Osaka were a place of storage tanks with several bright circles lined up, and rows of houses were already packed outside them. In 1961-69 five white circles line up, two in the north and three in the south, and in 1979-83 two large circles and a smaller circle in the southwest corner remain. A ballpark opened on the site in 1997, and in 2006 it took the name Kyocera Dome Osaka under a naming rights deal. In the image as of 2026 the northern half is a silver round roof, and only the round object in the southern corner remains in the same place. It is a replacement rarely seen on the bay shore: a round shape was replaced by a round shape.

The elevation is 0.4 m at the center, -0.2 m at the northern measurement point, and 3.7 m in the south, directly showing the differences in the heights of levees and roads. The official land price for residential land moved from 455,000 yen in 2017 to 956,000 yen in 2026, and the difference of 501,000 yen between the endpoints is the largest among the listed bay shore locations. As a ratio, however, it is 2.1 times, a level slightly below Port Island.

The location Around Amagasaki Q's Mall changed in character three times over the eras. In 1874 the railway linking Osaka and Kobe opened, and Kanzaki Station was set up. Around 1928 the area around the station is fields all over, and strip-shaped lots and a bundle of tracks running on the left side of the frame appear. The position of these tracks does not change even in the image as of 2026. In 1961-69 the fields have disappeared, and the area has become a factory town with large-roofed buildings lined up north and south of the tracks.

In 1997 the JR Tozai Line opened and Amagasaki Station became a station where three lines meet; in 2009 a large commercial facility opened on the site of a beer factory, and in 2013 it became Amagasaki Q's Mall. In the image as of 2026 the grains of the roofs are gathered into large masses, and tall buildings stand north of the station. The texture value rose from 16.9 to 45.6. It is low land, 1.4 m at the center and 0.4 m at the western measurement point. The official land price for residential land rose from 208,000 yen in 1983 to 555,000 yen in 1991, and after a bottom in the early 2010s it is 195,000 yen in 2026. It is a series whose endpoints, 40 years apart, are almost the same, with a large peak in between.

Land that appeared with the airport

The ground of Rinku Town is still the sea off Senshu even in the 1984-86 photograph. In 1961-69 there is no reclaimed land offshore, and a coastline of white sandy beach runs diagonally. In 1974-78 rows of dark dots appear on the sea offshore, and in 1984-86 the sea along the shore becomes a band clouded with ocher. It became land after a reclamation that kept pace with the opening of Kansai International Airport in September 1994; in the same year a railway station opened on the shore facing the airport, and the high-rise Gate Tower Building was completed in 1996.

The texture value hardly moves, from 40.5 to 41.3. This is because the town on the shore side is in the frame from the start. The elevation of reclaimed land that is evenly flat is another feature: against 3.8 m at the center, the surrounding measurement points stay at 3.5 to 3.9 m. At Senboku New Town (Izumigaoka), built in steps by cutting hills, the southern measurement point is 84.6 m against 71.5 m at the center, a gap of more than 13 m. Even new districts of the same period take a different cross-section when the underlying terrain differs.

Kobe, which cut mountains and filled the sea offshore

The City of Kobe adopted a method of cutting the mountains behind the city area and filling the sea offshore with the soil. The photographs preserve well the order in which the soil between the mountains and the sea moved. In 1961-69 the position of Port Island shows only sea and ships, and a single thin straight line is drawn where the southern edge of the later island would be. Reclamation offshore began in 1966, and in 1970 the Kobe Ohashi Bridge linked the island with the mainland. In 1974-78 unfilled water like an inlet remains inside the island, and in 1979-83 a line with rounded corners runs around the blocks.

The first phase was completed in 1981, and in the same year the Port Liner opened and an exposition was held with the island as its venue. In 1984-86 tall buildings stand in the central blocks, and the sea outside the southern edge is still dark. In the image as of 2026 the blocks of the second phase spread beyond that line, and in 2006 Kobe Airport opened offshore south of the island. The mean pixel difference is 18.7, and the texture value has risen from 8.3 to 42.3. The official land price for office and warehouse land goes from 83,000 yen in 2015 to 185,000 yen in 2026, an endpoint ratio of 2.2 times.

Rokko Island, built next, was still sea all over in 1961-69. Reclamation began in 1972, and 1974-78 shows a thin seawall line running horizontally across the middle of the sea, sand-colored soil showing above the surface, and a pale green cloudiness around it. The Rokko Ohashi Bridge was built in 1977; in 1979-83 a long, narrow band extends east to west and encloses water inside it, and in 1984-86 the full shape of the square island is complete. In 1990 a new transit line reached the island.

The shape of the series does not resemble Port Island's. For the official land price of factory land on Rokko Island, 250,000 yen in 1993 is the highest up to the 2026 publication, and with 53,800 yen in 2015 as the bottom, even 110,000 yen in 2026 does not reach half of 1993. Even for artificial islands close in grading method and era, the numbers diverge this far depending on their use and on the times they went through. The range of the elevation measurement points is 4.6 to 5.9 m, as flat as Port Island.

Waterside towns on either side of the earthquake

At HAT Kobe, in 1945-50 the lower right half of the frame is dark sea, large-roofed factories form a row at the water's edge, and an anchorage is visible at the lower left. In 1961-69 piers extend offshore and round storage tanks line up, and in 1974-78 an oval track appears above the center. In 1984-86 the inside of the northern track looks vermilion, and the factory belt is filled with large reddish-brown roofs. After the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of 1995, the land vacated by factories moving away was developed as a new city center, and the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art opened in 2002. In the image as of 2026, the clusters of large roofs have turned into rows of slab-shaped residential buildings.

The use of land changed by the earthquake also remains in the numbers. The texture value goes from 17.4 to 43.7, and the mean pixel difference is 27.9. The elevation is 6.4 m at the center but rises to 22.9 m at the northern measurement point, showing a cross-section in which the foot of the Rokko mountains presses close to the water's edge. The official land price for residential land came back from 174,000 yen in 2011-2012, the bottom up to the 2026 publication, and in 2026 it is 334,000 yen, above the starting point of 285,000 yen in 1997.

Ashiyahama is a residential area that went through both reclamation and the earthquake. In 1945-50 a band of white shining sand draws the coastline, and in the image as of 2026 that position is hidden inside the town. In 1974-78 only the straight lines of the lot layout are drawn on two lots of bare ground jutting into the sea, and residents began moving into the group of high-rise housing in 1979. In 1979-83 the high-rise buildings stand in two clusters, and in 1984-86 a second area of graded land appears to the south.

The City of Ashiya also suffered heavy damage in the Southern Hyogo Prefecture Earthquake of January 17, 1995. In the image as of 2026 low houses spread over the southern reclaimed land, and a fan-shaped sandy beach and a landing pier for yachts lie side by side. Up to the 2026 publication, 670,000 yen in 1993 is the highest official land price for residential land; with 230,000 yen in 2005 as the bottom, it is 325,000 yen in 2026.

Four patterns on the bay shore

If you step through the eras and compare, the patterns of change fall broadly into four. They are Sakishima / Nanko / Port Island / Rokko Island / Rinku Town, which raised towns from the sea surface; Universal City / Kobe Harborland / Kyocera Dome Osaka, which replaced industrial land together with its use; the area around Amagasaki Q's Mall, which moved in two steps, from fields to factories and from factories to commerce; and HAT Kobe and Ashiyahama, whose outlines were rewritten by an outside force, the earthquake. Even though they are grouped under the same words, bay shore redevelopment, the steps left in the photographs were different in each.

If you look at the endpoints of the official land prices in the series up to the 2026 publication, at locations whose records begin in the 1990s the starting point is most often the highest value and the lowest value mostly comes around 2015, while at locations whose records begin in the 2010s the starting point is the lowest value or close to it, and 2026 is the highest value. Depending on the use, neither the timing of the movement nor the direction of the gap lines up.

The change in a town's appearance and the change in the numbers are easier to read if you treat them as separate measures. The elevations listed are measured values of the ground surface and do not show flood or earthquake scenarios. For the disaster scenarios of each piece of land, check the materials published by each local government through the Hazard Map Portal Site of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.

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