NAGASAKI, JAPAN

Nagasaki is one of Japan’s leading ports. The port was known to Portuguese and Spanish traders before it was opened to the Dutch in 1567. Trade with the West was restricted between 1641-1858, but Nagasaki was gradually opened to trade during the 1850s. The city was long a centre for Christianity and had, until 1945, Japan’s largest Roman Catholic Cathedral. On August 9, 1945 Nagasaki became the target of the second atomic bomb ever detonated on a populated area. About 75,000 people were killed or wounded, and more than one third of the city was devastated. Among Nagasaki’s landmarks is Glover Mansion, scene of Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly.