Chiba Minato about 60 years ago and today

History of Chiba Minato

West of the central town of the City of Chiba, the area facing Tokyo Bay is Chiba Minato. Chiba Minato Station on Chiba Urban Monorail Line 1 and the JR Keiyo Line is placed here, and west of the station, square-cut piers and a green park jutting into the sea stand side by side. Yet if you open the 1945-50 aerial photograph, there is no land in that place. The left half of the frame is entirely water, with only a single bright band of sand running diagonally. The place name Minato (the name means port) was given after this place became land.

A shallow sea and tidal flats

The east shore of Tokyo Bay was land where shallow sea continued far offshore and wide tidal flats appeared when the tide went out. In the sea off Chiba, nori seaweed farming and shellfish fishing were carried on, and the seaside settlements lined up in a band just behind the sandy beach. Nobuto, where the official land price (Chika Koji) site is placed, is one of those towns facing the sea. After the war, plans to line the waterfront with steel and chemical factories were brought to the east shore of Tokyo Bay, and the tidal flats were filled in one after another. The land of Chiba Minato is a product of that work.

In the 1945-50 photograph, a thin bright band of sand runs diagonally from near the upper left of the frame to the lower right corner. This is the shoreline before reclamation. The lower left side of the band is water all over; fine ripples and patches of shallows spread across the whole grainy frame, and not a single structure appears. From the middle, only a few thin straight lines jut toward the water; they are landing piers or the edges of canals. The upper right side of the band is completely different. Small houses are packed without gaps along the beach, and behind them rectangular fields line up. In the upper right corner there are buildings in a row drawing an arc and dense trees, and in the middle of the right edge railway tracks gather in a bundle. In the lower right corner a channel with quays and white buildings reaches in. Note that the lower left corner of the frame is missing a tile and remains as a pale gray triangle.

The era of white graded land

Opening without choosing an era brings up the 1961-69 photograph. It is the era in which the momentum of reclamation is most exposed. Outside the old shoreline, a dazzling white flat area spreads out. It is cut into large rectangles with straight lines, yet there are almost no buildings. In the upper left of the frame, murky water still remains in patches, which reads as lots in the middle of being filled with soil. A striped band of long, narrow rectangles lined up crosses the center. Toward the bottom of the center, land with its corners cut off juts into the sea, and a dark rectangular water surface cuts deep inside it. It is a water surface for bringing ships in, with small buildings around it. The lower left is still gray sea. The boundary between the white flat area and the roofs traces the shoreline before reclamation just as it is.

Factories and a dug-in channel

In 1974-78, when the photographs become color, the graded land starts to be used. A section where long buildings with greenish and bluish roofs stand in parallel occupies the upper left of the frame. The round storage tanks gather not there but in a band running down from the middle of the left side toward the lower middle, with a dark rectangular water surface and quays right next to it, and long, narrow shadows that look like ship hulls can be seen. Large factories are also mixed into this band. At the upper center, a bright building with many corners stands with a wide forecourt. Between the reclaimed land and the old town, a band of wide straight roads and railway runs diagonally, stitching the two lands together. Even so, ocher bare ground remains here and there in the frame, and on the dark navy water along the bottom edge there are jetties and fine rows that look like timber.

By 1979-83 the bare ground is filled in further. The left half of the frame is covered with roofs without gaps, and in the dug-in water surface in the middle of the left side, white ships are moored at the quays. At the upper center, a building with a round outline and landscaped green space appear. In the lower center there is a blue rectangular water surface. And along the bottom edge the next developed site shows itself, with only straight lot divisions drawn on wide pale ocher ground. In the upper right corner of the frame, green space with a pond and an oval track appear, and you can read that room is being made on the old town side too.

A tower, a park and a station

It was in 1986 that the character of the use changed. The JR Keiyo Line reached Chiba Minato and the station opened, and in the same year a tall observation tower opened on the waterfront. It was the year uses that draw people were added to land made for handling cargo. Later the Chiba Urban Monorail also reached Chiba Minato, and the station has become a place to transfer between two lines.

In the 1987-90 photograph, the developed site along the bottom edge has turned into a park. It holds curving paths, trees that have begun to grow, a plaza opening in a fan shape and a round paved plaza, and at the water's edge there is a band of pale sand. It is a beach made by human hands. From there a single long, narrow landing pier extends offshore. Two large white ships are moored in the dug-in water surface in the middle of the left side, and a large ocher vacant lot still remains in the center.

In today's aerial photograph, from the center to the lower center, tall buildings shaped like long, narrow rectangles stand in rows facing the same way. This is the result of offices and housing gathering around the station. The park's trees have grown dark green, and the landing pier still extends offshore. In the rectangular water surface east of it, small white boats are packed tightly. It is a yacht mooring. The factories and warehouses in the left half of the frame have hardly changed the framework of their lots, and only their roofs have been replaced by white and silver. A red hull is moored in the dug-in water surface. In front of the station in the upper right, large roofs and a bundle of tracks spread out. The layout in which factories, port, park and town line up in layers from the sea inland fits into this one photograph.

The difference among the five measurement points does not reach 1 m. The west is highest at 3.8 m, followed by the south at 3.6 m, the location and the east both at 3.1 m, and the north at 2.9 m. There is a reversal in that the west, on the reclaimed land side, is slightly higher than the east, on the old town side, but the fact that this whole area is flat everywhere stands out more than the numbers. The official hazard map published by the City of Chiba shows the expected extent of flooding in maps. At a residential site in Nobuto 1-chome about 660 m away, up to the 2026 official land prices, 200,000 yen per square meter in 2013 is the lowest and 360,000 yen in 2026 the highest. This upward slope overlaps with the period when tall buildings gathered around the station.