Kinjo-futo about 60 years ago and today

History of Kinjo-futo

This land, jutting out as a pentagon off the Port of Nagoya, does not yet appear in the oldest two of the five past eras available at this location. In the 1961-69 aerial photograph, the same position is a wide tidal flat exposed at low tide. On the bright surface of sand, dark channels run, branching like the limbs of a tree and narrowing toward the open sea. The two characters of Kinjo (the name means golden castle) used in the pier's name are also known as an alternative name for Nagoya Castle. About 15 km south of the castle town, in the shallowest part at the head of Ise Bay, land bearing that name was placed.

Offshore, where tidal flats spread

The head of Ise Bay is a sea into which rivers flowing down from the Kiso mountains have dropped sediment over a long time. The slope from the shore toward the open sea is gentle, and the water is shallow everywhere. Channels for large ships have to be kept by dredging the bottom, and the dredged-up soil needs a place to be put. A shallow sea is where the side that digs and the side that piles meet.

In the 1945-50 photograph, water takes up most of the frame. Land appears only in the middle of the top edge, where mottled spots and rows of small buildings can be seen inside lots divided into a grid by white straight streets. The southern edge of that land is cut off by a straight seawall, and the area beyond it is already sea. South of the seawall, bright sand curls and juts out in a hook shape, and a single thin streak runs from the top edge downward through the middle of the frame. On the water to the right, faint, bright swirl-like patches float, and the patterns of sand on the shallow seabed show through. The bottom edge of the frame is blown out white diagonally, and that is a part the photograph does not reach.

By 1961-69, human hands appear densely on the same sea. The land at the top edge has spread south, with a large lot of what look like dark woods cut off by straight edges on the left side and rows of roofs that look like factories lined up along the top edge. In the upper right there is mottled bright bare ground, showing that development is under way. The tidal flat spreading south of the seawall takes up nearly half the frame, with many dark channels branching. Dark water lies to its east, with dozens of white ships lined up diagonally. In the middle of the right edge a group of round tanks and a straight quay appear, and toward the left at the bottom there are a thin jetty extending north-south and bright land surrounded by a band of sand. Vertical and horizontal seams run across the frame, and there the brightness of the sea surface changes by a step. Even within the frame of the same era each photograph was taken on a different day, so the shades of the water should be seen separately from changes in the land.

Until the pentagonal land was made

In the 1974-78 photograph, there is land where the tidal flat was. Pentagonal flat ground appears from the center of the frame to the lower left, and ocher bare ground and lot lines lie inside it, mixed here and there with the green of grass. Roads dividing the blocks have already been drawn, long, narrow transit sheds line up diagonally along the western edge, and small square loads are piled on the quay outside them. Toward the left of the center, a single structure with a white round roof stands out, taller than its surroundings. It is connected to the industrial zone to the north by a narrow road like a bridge, and on the water to the east the branching pattern of the tidal flat still remains. Land that has just changed from sea surface to land has begun to be used first as a place to put cargo.

The 1979-83 photograph appears sunk dark overall. The inside of the pentagon is almost entirely paved, and the lots are filled to the corners. The transit sheds on the western edge have increased in number, and along the quay small grains line up in large numbers in orderly rows. Each grain is thought to be a vehicle. The Port of Nagoya is known as a port for loading finished automobiles onto ships, and it needs many yards in front of the quays where they are lined up to wait. The round roof left of center remains in the same position, and to its southeast a single lot of earth-colored flat ground floats up in orange. The unfinished part of the development is concentrated there. In the industrial zone to the north, black rectangular lots have spread, and the density of roofs has also risen. The land was added toward the south.

Bridges and the end of a railway

In the 1987-90 photograph, the character of this land changes. From the middle of the left side of the frame, a thin elevated structure crosses the water straight and attaches to the western edge of the pentagon. It is the first of the bridges spanning the channels of the Port of Nagoya, and in the mid-1980s cars became able to cross it. Beyond where the bridge attaches, the southeastern edge has extended, and a wide band of pavement stretches long, becoming a new quay. The green of trees has increased around the round roof left of center, forming what looks like a park. The rows of grains along the quay have grown thicker still, and at the southern end a ship with a red hull is alongside a long, narrow transit shed.

In the photograph as of 2026, the bridge runs through the frame east-west and out onto the water to the right. Toward the right stand two towers strung with diagonal cables, their shadows falling long on the water. The arrangement in which three bridges in a row cross the whole water surface of the port was completed at the end of the 1990s. In the southern half of the pentagon there are a lot where buildings with round roofs and small brightly colored structures gather, an exhibition facility with a large white roof, and box-shaped buildings. Part of the blocks that were places to put cargo has been replaced by places that draw people. Rows of vehicles and transit sheds remain on the western edge and the southern jetty, and the work of a port continues. On the southeastern edge, long, narrow transit sheds line up on wide gray pavement, and on the water offshore a ship trailing a white wake appears. The industrial zone to the north keeps the shape of its lots while the colors of the roofs change, and the green of trees has increased here and there.

The surface of the pentagon is remarkably flat. The central measuring point is 4.2 m, the point toward the south 4.1 m, and the point toward the east also 4.2 m, a difference that stays within ten-odd centimeters. The point toward the north at 6.2 m and the point toward the west at 5.6 m are somewhat higher, which reads as the ends of the cross-section reaching the older reclaimed land and the crown of the seawall. Since this is a surface made by piling soil on the sea, expected flooding is quicker to see on a map than by looking at numbers. On the hazard map published by the City of Nagoya, the expectations for each pier are shown in different colors.

The record of values remains not inside the pier but in Sorami-cho, about 2 km to the north. It is a point surveyed for office and factory use, and it was 50,000 yen per square meter in 1985. It rose to 74,500 yen in 1991, fell for a long time from there, hit its bottom in the record up to the 2026 official land prices (Chika Koji) at 33,400 yen in 2006, and is 48,500 yen in 2025. In the 2026 publication it is 52,000 yen. The nearest station is Kinjo-futo Station on the Nishi-Nagoyako Line of Nagoya Rinkai Rapid Transit, the terminus of a line running south from Nagoya Station. Passenger trains came in 2004, a little over 30 years after the tidal flat had changed into land. Switching through the five eras up to 1987-90 from the oldest, you can follow in one continuous sequence how a surface of sand with channels running through it changed into a cargo-handling shore, and how bridges and tracks reached it.