Ujina / Hiroshima Port District about 60 years ago and today

History of Ujina / Hiroshima Port District

The ground that the streets of Hiroshima sit on is fine soil that the Ota River dropped just before entering the sea. Its tip spread shallowly toward the inland waters of the Seto Inland Sea, and it was a tidal flat where a surface of sand and mud appeared when the tide went out. The water was too shallow to bring ships alongside, and the salt too strong to make rice paddies. Even so, its position, opening directly onto the inland sea right in front of the castle town, was hard to give up as land for placing a port. Senda Sadaaki, the governor of Hiroshima Prefecture, went ahead with works to close off and fill this tidal flat and build a port jutting out to sea. The works continued in the face of opposition and debt, and in 1889 Ujina Port was completed.

Newly developed land that became a military port

Newly built Ujina was for a while nothing more than quiet, newly developed land. That changed completely in 1894. Ujina was chosen as the shipping point for sending troops and supplies out to the continent, and tracks were extended from Hiroshima Station to the port. Imperial General Headquarters was placed in Hiroshima, and warehouses and barracks lined the shore. The character of the port became fixed not as a commercial port of the Seto Inland Sea but as a military transport base. In August 1945, this area, away to the south of the hypocenter, escaped the burning of the city, and became the departure point for boats carrying the injured to relief stations set up on an island.

The oldest aerial photograph, from 1945-50, shows the scene just after that. The right half of the frame is a dense town area with a grid of streets, and inside it there is a large section where long, narrow buildings line up in many rows facing the same way. They look like rows of barracks or warehouses, but even the shape of the roofs cannot be made out. Most of the left half is tidal flat, with tidal stripes and sand ripples running all over it. A thin white line passes through the tidal flat, making corners, and you can read that a bank or seawall had already been put in. A corner at the upper left is markedly brighter than its surroundings, low, flat ground where thin roads run in a grid and only dark dots are scattered. In the lower center of the frame there is a stretch of rolling land covered with trees, and its northern base is connected to the mainland side by a bright, thin band. This is how Motoujina, originally an island, looks after reclamation joined it to the land.

The tidal flat being enclosed

In the 1961-69 photograph about 20 years later, the low, flat corner that lay open at the upper left has been filled with a grid of blocks. The seaward edge in the west is a hard straight seawall, and there is no longer a sandy beach struck by waves. Even so, from the center of the frame to the left there is still a wide tidal flat, and winding channels and sand ripples appear clearly. The change is on top of that tidal flat. A long white line bends twice at right angles in the sea, and short white rows crowd inside the enclosure. This is the form, partway through, of works turning sea into land. On the east side the outline of the port has already been fixed: a wide bright band running east-west through the full width passes as the quay street, and on its seaward side transit sheds and squares that look like cargo line up. There is also an open level area holding bundles of tracks and rows that look like railcars, and you can see that the railway came right up to the quays. A basin for small boats surrounded by an arcing breakwater, and quays jutting out like the teeth of a saw, can also be read. In a corner a little inland from the water's edge there is a large site with an oval track surrounded by tiers of rows, and to its south parallel lines that look like bundles of tracks and a group of square buildings that look like warehouses continue. This is how it looked when facilities for the people and goods working at the port were packed in layers behind the quays.

The 1974-78 photograph has large gaps at this location. From the middle of the frame downward there is no orthophoto coverage and it is black all over, and two blank areas also enter the lower left. Not a single pixel shows the waters of the port and the quays, Motoujina, or the southern half of the tidal flat. Only a band of about 40% from the top edge is usable, and it shows the branches of the delta, densely built-up town area, and long, narrow masses floating on the water, crowded together facing the same way.

The vanished water surface of the inner harbor

By 1979-83, the tidal flat in the left half has been replaced by blocks lined with rectangular roofs. A grid of roads has been drawn on the surface that was sea, and buildings move in lot by lot. In 1987-90 the next stage can be seen. Several square water surfaces remain, surrounded by blocks, and long, narrow quays jut a long way into the water. Along the quays, long, narrow orange-brown masses line up tightly. They also look like rafts of timber, but that cannot be stated for certain. On the seaward side jetties extend like the teeth of a comb, and small boats enter between them. The port not only spread outward but also held water surfaces on its inner side.

If you look at the same place in today's photograph, that water surface is gone. In the position of the pixels that were dark water in 1987-90, there sits a round embankment surrounded by a ring of trees, with a flat plaza inside it. East of the embankment a wide, pale open space continues, and to the south a small pond and a paved plaza. The water surface became a park just as it was. An elevated road crossing the city diagonally and parallel lines along it have been newly added. On the south side ferry landing piers line up in a row, and the white wakes of ships that have departed remain long on the water. In the inlet to the east, small boats that look like yachts are moored densely. Outside the western seawall a pale band of sand has returned, and a tidal flat at low tide has shown its face again. The Ujina Line of Japanese National Railways, which ran from Hiroshima Station to the port, was abolished, and as of 2026 the only track reaching the water's edge is the Ujina Line of Hiroshima Electric Railway. The terminal stop is named Hiroshima Port, and if you get off you come straight out onto the landing piers.

The height of land made by reclamation is lower the closer it is to the sea. The representative point of the district is 3 m, the northern point toward the interior 4.3 m, the west 2.7 m and the east 2.3 m, all only a few meters high. If you follow the cross-section south, the values break off. Only the south point has no value, because it is not land but the waters of the port. The maps the City of Hiroshima has drawn for each area show how far water is assumed to come in a storm surge or tsunami. If you have business near the port, it is good to open those maps before you go out.

A residential site whose value movements can be followed is in Ujina-higashi, about 1.3 km inland from the port. In the official land price (Chika Koji) records up to the 2026 publication, 385,000 yen per square meter in 1993 is the highest, and 166,000 yen in both 2006 and 2012 is the lowest. In the 2026 official land prices it is 257,000 yen, about two thirds of 1993.

The outline of the port has been rewritten many times over these hundred and some years. It became a port by closing off a tidal flat, became a military transport base, became a shore holding an inner harbor, and then, with that water filled in, became a waterfront lined with a park and landing piers. Even so, the hill of Motoujina stays dark green, and below its western slope a short sandy beach remains. If you move back and forth between the eras, in every era with coverage only this hill always appears with the same outline. As a landmark for measuring how much the port side has changed, nothing is easier to understand than this.