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Saikai NPKujukushima, Nagasaki
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“Kujukushima” uses 99 to mean “many,” not a literal count. A 45-person citizen–government team spent 16 months counting land above the highest tide with vegetation; checking by boat and aircraft, it announced 208 islands in 2001.
Kuroshima, one of Kujukushima’s 4 inhabited islands, is part of the UNESCO-listed “Villages on Kuroshima Island.” During Christianity’s ban, hidden Christians kept their faith while officially registering with the island’s Sōtō Zen temple, Kōzenji.
Kuroshima’s traditional fukure manju is a special-occasion treat: yeast makes its dough rise, and each bun rests on a local sankirai leaf. The recipe is still passed on through hands-on cooking with island children.
Yokiotoshi—literally “axe-drop”—is named in a local tale about a lord who dropped his axe while trying to cut down a tree that blocked his fishing. The islands’ names often carry their own small stories.
Tokoi Island’s eastern slope is covered by about 7,000 m² of tobikazura, a vine with striking purple flowers. It was recorded there in 2000, and the wild plant is known from only 4 sites in Japan.
Around Kujukushima, anchovies caught by purse seine are boiled and dried into iriko—Japanese dried fish used for broth and snacks. Nearby Kosaza is a major production area, so the catch can be processed close to where it is landed.
Kujukushima’s oysters have their own seasonal barbecue festival, 九十九島かき食うカキ祭り—roughly, “Kujukushima: eat oysters!” It brings the local shellfish harvest to the shore for a distinctly communal feast.
From mid-February to late March, migrating red-crowned and hooded cranes pass over Sasebo on their way from wintering grounds in Izumi, Kagoshima, toward breeding areas in northeast Asia. About 5,000 are observed across the city each season.
Kujukushima is also a pearl-farming landscape: TASAKI opened its farm here in 1979. The company says it now cultivates about 1 million oysters and raises nearly 5 million young ones each year.
Three threatened kinds of marine water strider have been recorded in Kujukushima. These insects skate across the sea’s surface, and the Environment Ministry notes especially high numbers in some of the islands’ seagrass-lined coves.
The islands north and south of the Saza River mouth may look like one archipelago, but the southern ones are about 10 million years older. They also tend to be smaller, steeper and more numerous than their northern neighbors.
Kurokojima plays a small optical trick with the tide: at low tide it looks like one island, while at high tide it separates into 3. It also has a beautiful beach and pearl-farming grounds.
Japan’s celebrated mapmaker Inō Tadataka surveyed Kujukushima by boat and spent New Year 1813 in nearby Ainoura. Local accounts credit him with a verse about being nearly 70 and the “99 islands.”
About 81.5% of Kujukushima’s 288.5 km of coastline remains natural. Those unbuilt shores include a mix of rocky edges, beaches and tidal flats—different small habitats packed around the same island-dotted sea.
Completed in 1902, Kuroshima Church is not brick from top to bottom: its lower walls are brick, while the upper story is wood-clad. Inside, the sanctuary has Arita porcelain tiles, and black Kuroshima granite appears at column bases.
Sasebo marks September 19 as Kujukushima Day, established in 1999. The observance includes a citizen cleanup, turning the archipelago’s scenic identity into a community tradition of caring for its shores.
The Kujukushima panorama from Ishidake Observatory was used in the Hollywood film The Last Samurai. The islands’ layered green-and-blue view has a brief place on the big screen.
