Island City (Teriha) about 60 years ago and today

History of Island City (Teriha)

This location is at the far east of Hakata Bay, at the base of the sandbar that continues to Shikanoshima. The large island crossing the frame diagonally is the star of today's photograph, but in the past eras that island does not appear. In the oldest, 1961-69, there is land only in the left and right corners of the top edge, and the area between them and below is water from edge to edge. The upper left corner is Gannosu, and the upper right corner is a settlement sitting on the sandbar; while explanations of reclaimed land usually start from a place where "there is nothing", in this frame the stars of the prehistory stand on the opposite shore.

The shore that had a runway

On the land in the upper left, a broad white straight line extends straight out, with thin taxiways branching off it. It is the runway of an airfield. Fukuoka's gateway to the sky was originally at Gannosu, facing the bay, and an airfield was opened in 1936. As a base for air routes toward the continent, the flat sandy land spreading on the inner side of the sandbar was chosen. After the war it became a facility used by the US military, and it was returned to the Japanese side in the 1970s. In the 1961-69 photograph, the white band of the runway, the branching of the taxiways, and even a row of buildings with roofs linked like the teeth of a saw that look like hangars can be followed as they are. A thin white sandy beach continues along the shore, and after climbing in an arc to the upper right, it ends by curving into a small hook shape.

Another piece of land lies in the upper right corner. On the sandbar, small lots and roads gather into a settlement of lined-up roofs, and in the shallow water west of it dark patches spread. A water surface of nothing but coarse-grained gray shading lies between the two pieces of land and in the lower two-thirds of the frame, with no landing piers or embankments placed on it. The blocks called Teriha are still under this water.

A former site turned into sports grounds

The 1987-90 photograph is in color, and you can clearly see how the former airfield site is used. The whiteness of the runway is gone, and instead large pale rectangles line up in steps. They are sports grounds. Small buildings and paved surfaces sit between them, and the whole former site has changed into a collection of sports facilities. The sandy beach remains as a bright band, and even after more than 20 years the hook shape at its tip is in almost the same position. The sea is deep green, the differences between shooting dates remain on the water surface as polygonal shading, and the seams appear directly as the outlines of shapes. The settlement on the sandbar at the upper right has also increased its number of roofs, and lots have packed in to the full width of the sandbar. The line of the opposite shore itself is in almost the same position as in the black-and-white photograph.

Change also shows at the lower right of the frame. A straight seawall is drawn diagonally, inside it mid-rise apartment buildings line up casting shadows, and toward the north spreads bright bare ground in the middle of land preparation. If you look at the same place in 1961-69, it was water. A corner that was water became a town, which shows that at the far end of the bay, land was added in order from the waters close to the shore. Even so, in the center of the frame, offshore where the island later sits, there is not a single structure. Of the three past eras, the older two are both records of "the time when it was still sea".

An island where the plan came first

Teriha appears as land only after 1989. The east side of Hakata Bay is a shallow sea where tidal flats and sandbars developed, and since the Meiji era, works to gain land by filling in the waters close to the shore have been repeated. Several areas where the land pushed out offshore, such as Kashiihama and Higashihama, line up at the far end of the bay. The artificial island on which Teriha sits is an extension of that trend, but differs from the precedents in that it was built offshore, away from the shore, as an independent island. Reclamation began in the mid-1990s, carried out as port development by the City of Fukuoka, and from the start it was intended to carry both piers handling cargo and a new residential area. Because the skeleton of the blocks was decided first, on the sea, the way the roads are divided in today's photograph is remarkably neat. The streets are mostly at right angles and evenly spaced, but along the seawalls they swing diagonally to match the line of the shore. Not a single road curving along the terrain can be found, because the plan came before the terrain.

The contents of the island differ in character between left and right. From the left half down to the quay at the bottom, colorful containers are stacked in rows, gantry cranes line up at equal intervals on the sea side, and warehouses with large roofs are laid out squarely. The right half is the residential side, where mid-rise apartment buildings line up drawing arcs, a lot of green space with groves and a lawn plaza sits between them, and tall buildings and a compact site that looks like a school follow. From the northwestern end a long bridge crosses to the shore at the upper left, and on the east side another bridge connects to the urban area at the lower right. At the western end, bright unpaved ground remains in a wide band, with only lot lines and faint traces of land preparation drawn on it. The photograph shows as it is that the work of turning sea into soil is not finished. On the water at the lower left, a white ship crosses, drawing a thin wake.

The height of piled-up soil

The height of the land made by filling in the sea is well matched in all four directions. Against 3.3 m at the center, the north is 4.0 m, the west 4.2 m, the south 3.1 m and the east 2.9 m, and the difference between the highest and lowest points is only 1.3 m. It is fair to see that the design of the fill, not the undulation of terrain, has become the height of the surface as it is. Assumptions concerning water are worth checking with your own eyes. The hazard map published by the City of Fukuoka is colored lot by lot, and you can read that even inside the island the treatment differs by position.

The railway does not enter the island. The nearest station is Kashii Station on the JR Kashii Line / Kagoshima Line, and travel to and from the island is carried by bridges and roads. Records of official land prices (Chika Koji) remain for the residential land of the island itself, at a position about 1.6 km from this location. Per square meter the record begins at 94,700 yen in 2019, and 2026 is 140,000 yen. In the records up to the 2026 publication, the cheapest year is the first, 2019, and the highest year is the last, 2026, so a record that began shortly after the town opened has never once fallen below its starting point. Switching the eras, you can follow directly the contrast of the gray water surface being replaced by piers and blocks.