A Bridge That Has Never Stopped Carrying Traffic
Dejima Bridge (出島橋, Dejimabashi, and written 出嶋橋 in the older characters on its own nameplates) is an iron road bridge of 1890 crossing the Nakashima River between Edomachi and Dejimamachi in Nagasaki City, Nagasaki Prefecture, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) on 4 February 2021. It is the oldest road bridge in Japan still open to vehicles.
The bridge is a by-product of a much larger engineering project. Silt had been choking the mouths of the rivers running into Nagasaki harbour since the confusion of the late Edo and early Meiji years, and the Home Ministry took on the harbour works as a direct national undertaking from May 1885. Diverting the Nakashima River behind Dejima, building the Dejima jetty and dredging the inner harbour all began the following year, and the whole programme finished in 1893. The Dutch engineer Johannis de Rijke was among those who surveyed the harbour beforehand.
Rebuilding the waterfront roads meant rebuilding the bridges that carried them. Between 1888 and 1890 the traditional timber bridges along the shoreline gave way to trusses. The last of that series went up in 1890 at the river mouth and was called Shinkawaguchibashi. It is the same structure standing today.
A local newspaper, the Chinzei Nippo, carried an item on 21 June 1890 recording that the contract had gone to the Nihon Doboku Kaisha at seven thousand yen, that the iron ordered from the United States had already landed, that scaffolding was going up, and that the company's supervising engineer, surnamed Oka, was due in Nagasaki within a day or two to begin assembly. The planned span was given in the old units: twenty ken long, three ken wide.
Moved, Renamed, and Still Counting
Twenty years later the bridge was in the wrong place. On 24 November 1909 the Nagasaki city council resolved that Shinkawaguchibashi sat too close to Tamaebashi downstream to justify keeping, and that its material should be taken and used to replace the ageing bridge then called Dejimabashi, further up. The work was done in 1910. The structure came apart, moved upstream, went back together at the east end of Dejima, and took the older bridge's name with it. The nameplate on the right bank still reads that it was erected in 1910, which puzzles people who know the 1890 date, and the council minutes are the explanation.
The registration in 2021 was made under the criterion covering structures that contribute to the historical landscape of the nation, with registration number 42-0136 in the ninety-seventh round. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes a single-span Pratt truss of iron, 36 metres long and 4.9 metres wide, and identifies the giveaway feature: the truss joints are pinned, with eyebars as tension members. That is an American practice of the period, and it shows the bridge's parentage more clearly than any documentary record. Larger members are held with substantial bolts, smaller ones riveted. The Nagasaki city bridge ledger records slightly different figures, 36.7 metres long and 5.5 metres of overall width, and the original design, quoted in feet, was 110 by 18.
Repairs came in 1951, and the bridge kept its earlier form through them. It also stood through the atomic bombing of 9 August 1945, close enough to feel the blast. The Japan Society of Civil Engineers recognised it as a Civil Engineering Heritage site in November 2003, on the grounds that no older iron bridge in the country remains in service.
Every day it stays open, the record it holds gets one day longer.
Seeing It: Free, Any Hour, From Either Bank
Dejima Bridge is a public road, so there is no ticket, no gate and no closing time. You can walk across it at three in the morning if you want to. Vehicles run one way, and pedestrians have the parapet on both sides. The nearest stop is Dejima on the Nagasaki tram, a few steps away.
Look for the nameplates first. They sit high on the portal frames at each end of the truss, cut into a bat-shaped outline of a kind also used decoratively at Sofukuji temple in the city, and the lettering runs right to left. The romanised spelling on them reads Deshima rather than Dejima, which is not an error so much as a survival of an older convention. The ironwork is painted a pale blue, slender by modern standards, and at night the bridge is lit. People in Nagasaki tend to call it simply the iron bridge.
The view worth walking for is from the opposite bank. From there the truss frames the Former Dejima Seminary of 1878 behind it, the oldest surviving Protestant seminary building in Japan, and the two together are close to the only place in the city where a stretch of mid-Meiji townscape survives intact.
Visitors often confuse this bridge with Dejima Omotemonbashi, the slim pedestrian bridge completed in 2017 that reaches the reconstructed main gate on the far side of the island. They are different structures serving different purposes. The Site of the Dutch Trading Post at Dejima, a nationally designated historic site, charges admission and keeps its own opening hours, so check the official Dejima site if you plan to go inside; the bridge itself asks nothing of you. Photography from the road and the riverbank is unrestricted.
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- Find tours, activities & transport passes near Dejima Bridge
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Q&A
- Can you walk across Dejima Bridge, and is there an admission charge?
- Yes, and no. It is a working city road with footways on both sides, open at all hours and free to use. Vehicle traffic is one way. The Dejima historic site alongside it charges admission separately, but crossing the bridge does not require a ticket.
- Why is Dejima Bridge called the oldest road bridge in Japan?
- Because it is the oldest iron road bridge in the country that has carried vehicles continuously since it was built. Erected in 1890 and moved to its present site in 1910, it has been in service ever since. Older bridges survive in Japan, but not as working road bridges of iron.
- What is a Pratt truss with pin connections, as used at Dejima Bridge?
- A Pratt truss carries load through diagonals that work in tension and verticals in compression. At Dejima Bridge the members meet at pinned joints rather than rigid ones, and the tension members are eyebars, flat iron bars with a hole at each end. The combination was standard in American bridgework of the 1880s and 1890s and points to the imported origin of the iron.
- Was Dejima Bridge always at its present location?
- No. It was erected in 1890 at the mouth of the Nakashima River under the name Shinkawaguchibashi. In 1910 it was dismantled and rebuilt at the east end of Dejima, replacing an older bridge and inheriting its name. The right-bank nameplate records the 1910 date.
- How do you get to Dejima Bridge from Nagasaki Station?
- Take the tram bound for Sofukuji and get off at Dejima; the bridge is at the east end of the Dejima site, a short walk away, opposite the rear of the Nagasaki Prefectural Government building. It is a different bridge from Dejima Omotemonbashi, the 2017 footbridge to the reconstructed main gate.
Basic Information
| Name | Dejima Bridge (Dejimabashi) |
|---|---|
| Location | Edomachi to Dejimamachi, Nagasaki City, Nagasaki Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure), registration no. 42-0136 |
| Year Designated | Registered 4 February 2021 (97th round) |
| Quantity | 1 structure |
| Dimensions | Iron single-span bridge, length 36 m, width 4.9 m; built 1890, relocated 1910, repaired 1951 |
| Owner | Nagasaki City |
| Public Access | Public road, open at all times, free of charge |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs — National Cultural Properties Database
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00013670
- Cultural Heritage Online
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/595039
- Nagasaki Prefecture — Cultural Properties Database
- https://www.pref.nagasaki.jp/bunkadb/index.php/view/786
- Japan Society of Civil Engineers — Civil Engineering Heritage Commentary Sheet
- https://committees.jsce.or.jp/heritage/node/295
- Nagasaki City — Site of the Dutch Trading Post at Dejima
- https://www.city.nagasaki.lg.jp/page/1071.html
Last verified: 2026.08.20