30 minutes, and occasional service to Osaka and Fukuoka. All flights are on Japan Air Commuter turboprop planes.
Tanegashima is well known for at least two things. First, on August 25, 1543, its southernmost point, Cape Kadokura (門倉岬; Kadokura-misaki) was the landing site of the first Europeans to enter Japan. The ship, which had been blown off course in the waters between China and Okinawa, carried several Portuguese sailor/explorer/adventurers, among them, so he claimed, Fernão Mendes Pinto (ca. 1509–83). According to his memoirs, he was the first European to set foot in Japan and to introduce the matchlock arquebus, a type of firearm.
Although Pinto’s claims are subject to dispute (other accounts place him in India or Burma at the same time he supposedly landed in Japan), there’s no doubt that firearms were introduced by the Portuguese into Japan at this time. Indeed, for the next several hundred years, the Japanese name for a gun was Tanégashima Téppō (種子島鉄砲). Whether it was Pinto who introduced firearms is the subject of the controversy. Somewhat like Marco Polo’s Travels, Pinto’s tales are so extraordinary, so fantastical and so imaginative, it’s impossible to accurately assess them. On the other hand, his accounts of events and life in many far-flung places of 16th-century Asia are detailed so perfectly, no one doubts he was witness to them. His great autobiographical work is entitled Peregrinação (The Pilgrimage). It was published posthumously in 1614.
Because of this Portuguese–Japanese historical connection, Tanegashima’s island’s largest city, Nishinoomote, has a “sister” city in Vila do Bispo, Portugal. Nishinoomote’s Gun Museum is built in the shape of the early visiting ship, a Chinese junk, and there are several historical plaques and commemorative markers celebrating Portuguese–Japanese friendship around the island.
Cosmo Line’s Princess Wakasa provides a comfortable sail to Tanegashima from Kagoshima.
The Tanegashima Gun Museum.
The Gun Museum, which is formally known as the Tanegashima Center for Research and Development (種子島開発総合センター; Tanégashima kaihatsu sōgō sentā) but usually referred to as Teppō Hall (鉄砲館; Teppō-kan; lit. “iron-tube” (gun) hall), is for most visitors the highlight of Nishinoomote. There are over 100 priceless original early firearms. On display are weapons from all phases of their early development. In addition, the museum displays examples of Japanese metalworking skills used in the 16th century to produce scissors, samurai swords and metal armor.
Tanega Island’s second big claim to fame is that it’s the headquarters of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the Tanegashima Space Center (種子島宇宙 センター; Tanégashima uchū sentā). Located at the southeastern end of the island, JAXA and the Space Center are the heart of Japan’s research and development of rockets, missiles and satellites. The Space Center develops, tests, launches, tracks and retrieves rocket engines and satellites.
The launch complexes are open daily to the public except Mondays unless there is an actual space launch. In that case, only press and media people are allowed on the complex for viewing. The general public may view space launches from a number of designated points on the southern end of the island. The Space Exhibition Hall in the Space Center allows visitors to study everything from space development to planet exploration. The Space Center also includes a Space Information Center, a Rocket Launch Theatre and a Museum Gift Shop. The center includes exhibits on such things as the mechanisms and functions of satellites, the launching, tracking and controlling of rockets and the International Space Station project.
The Tanégashima Téppō Arquebus, Forerunner of the Modern Rifle
The Portuguese (European) Arquebus was a muzzle-loaded firearm with a matchlock firing device. Used between the 15th and 17th centuries, its successor was the flintlock musket. Immediately after their introduction in Japan, the weapons were widely reproduced and had a major impact on civil wars of that era. Japanese craftsmen and metallurgists were able to faithfully copy the designs and reproduce them in quantity due to their skills at manufacturing high-quality steel for traditional weapons, notably the Japanese blades known as katana (刀), otherwise known as the Japanese backsword and commonly referred to as samurai swords. The history of Japan’s use of Western firearms was brilliantly detailed in Noel Perrin’s essay “Giving Up the Gun: Japan's Reversion to the Sword, 1543–1879,” published in 1979.
A rocket launch at the Tanegashima Space Center.
Essentially, visitors are permitted to roam about most of the complex on their own self-guided tours. There is no admission charge. Guided tours in English or Japanese may be reserved but those arrangments must be made in advance.
But if you’re not all that interested in rockets and outer space, and maybe would rather just hit the beach, wander over to Takezaki Beach (竹崎海岸; Také-zaki kaigan; lit. “Bamboo Point Coast”) which is more than 5 miles (8 kilometers) of pure white sand, in fact the whole southern end of the island. It’s not for nothing that JAXA claims on its web-site that “It is known as the most beautiful rocket-launch complex in the world.”
In addition to its fine beach, the southern end of Tanegashima holds three prominent capes: one famous historically, the other two occupied by the Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The two controlled by JAXA hold a number of islets/rocks just offshore. We’ll describe them below. The southernmost (and southwesternmost) point of the island is occupied by Cape Kadokura, previously mentioned as the first European landing place in the empire of Japan. There are several small monuments, memorial stones and a Shintō shrine in commemoration of this event at the cape.
Cape Kadokura looking northeast.
Approximately 5 miles (8 kilometers) to the northeast is a second cape, Ōtakézaki (大竹崎; Ōtaké-zaki), which holds two sets of islets. A bit more than a mile (3 kilometers) to the north and east is the final cape, Yoshinobuzaki (吉信崎; Yoshino-bu zaki), which has a double set of islets offshore. Of these twin capes, it could be said that Cape Ōtaké occupies Tanegashima’s southernmost eastern point and Cape Yoshinobu occupies its easternmost southern point. Both capes are fully developed and covered with numerous administrative and service buildings, a launch pad and other high-tech equipment of JAXA. Offshore, each cape peters out to a series of large rocks. Coincidentally, in each case there are two separate collections of rocks off each of the capes. We’ll describe these four islet groups in our usual north to south sequence.
YOSHINOBUZAKIIWA (吉信崎岩 Yoshino bu zaki-iwa. The more northerly of the twin capes is Yoshinobu-zaki (Ōtaké-zaki is about a mile (1.5 kilometers to the south). Directly off Cape Yoshinobu there are approximately 20 rocks in all. There is one batch of about a half dozen large rocks (see photo page 24) to the southeast of the cape and around 15 more smaller ones (not visible in the photo above), some 1,000 feet (300 meters) to the northeast.
A rocket on display at the Tanegashima Space Center.
