Ogiura Beach was added to Your Favorites!
Ogasawara NP, Tokyo
Claim this place to tell your story your way.
About 300 m offshore, roughly 10 m down, lies the wreck of Japan’s No. 4 First-Class Transport Ship. Bombed on Aug. 4, 1944, it was grounded here and sank the next day; parts of its landing-craft rails remain.
The hilltop Ogasawara Shrine above the beach is also called Sadayori Shrine. A local history exhibit traces his “discovery” tale to a forged account submitted in 1727; the legend later inspired the names Ogasawara, Chichijima and Hahajima.
Ogiura’s “Nihohe” monument commemorates a brief 1862 classroom: 8 of 30 Hachijō settlers were children, taught reading and writing by official Hara Matakichi. The stone honors their used brushes; the settlement was withdrawn in 1863.
The July 26 shrine festival’s beach feast once included turtle stew, red rice and beer. Locals later added a human-powered race around Kaname Rock, about 1 km offshore, with 4-person outrigger canoes.
A Chichijima history guide documented a World War II pillbox on Kaname Rock, just offshore. Its 3 gun slits face toward the island’s shore rather than outward through the bay entrance.
A government outpost and residence opened at Ogiura in 1877. To keep Tokyo informed across the distance, officials recorded island affairs in a daily diary, but ships carried the records to the capital only 3 times a year.
An 1881 report counted 417 people on Chichijima: 364 migrants from mainland Japan and 53 European- or American-origin residents. The Ogiura government outpost had 33 staff—a vivid snapshot of the island’s diversity.
Ogiura’s fan-shaped shore gives the beach its name; Kaname Rock sits like the fan’s pivot. From the beach, you can see the regular Ogasawara Maru crossing Futami Bay beyond the rock.
Ogiura’s broad underwater sand gives way near Kaname Rock to coral where fish gather; green sea turtles sometimes swim by, too. The change from sandy shallows to reef life happens over a short swim.
