Culture & History - Hirado City Tourism Association

Thanks to its coastal location, Hirado has long been a place of rich cultural exchange via the sea. Once a port of call from which ships would set sail for China during the Japanese envoys to Sui and Tang China, many famous Japanese figures the likes of Kobo Daishi and Eisai are said to have visited the city. Later as the city became a strategic location used by Japanese pirates and foreign exchange with China continued to increase, it soon saw the arrival of the first Portuguese ships during the country’s Sengoku period. It was at this time that St. Francis Xavier, currently on a mission to Kagoshima, visited Hirado to meet the ships from Portugal. This marked the first Christian missionary work to take place in Nagasaki Prefecture, and Christianity soon spread like wildfire throughout Hirado. Later during the prohibition on Christianity, many Christians of Hirado continued to practice their faith in secret, a people who came to be known as the Hidden Christians.

The early 17th century marked the arrival of Western ships from the Netherlands and England and, with the permission of the Tokugawa shogunate, the city flourished as Japan’s first trading port with the West. Hirado soon became the cradle of cultural exchange within Japan and the port city saw many foreign visitors come and go. And yet the curtain fell for Hirado when the shogunate ordered that all international trade go through the island of Dejima in Nagasaki, bringing its period of trade with the Western world to a close.

When the prohibition on Christianity was lifted during the Meiji era, many hidden Christians from the Nagasaki and Amakusa regions returned to the modern Christian Church, many of whom moved to Hirado from throughout Nagasaki Prefecture, and continued to build new churches one after another. However, a significant number of hidden Christians on Ikitsuki Island and along the western coast of the island of Hirado decided not to return to the modern Christian Church and instead to continue to practice their faith just as they had throughout the prohibition, a group who have come to be known as the Kakure Kirishitan (Hidden Christians). Ikitsuki Island is now home to some 300 remaining Kakure Kirishitan who continue to practice their faith to this very day.