Hirado

Hirado is a city at the northwestern tip of Nagasaki Prefecture in Japan, spread across the Kitamatsuura Peninsula and several islands including Hirado Island, which a bridge joins to the Kyushu mainland. Its western end is the westernmost area of Japan reachable by land transport from the main islands. Hirado was a port of call between the East Asian mainland and Japan from the Nara period, and under the local Matsuura clan it traded with Korea and Song-dynasty China. In the Sengoku and early Edo periods it became a centre of foreign trade with Ming China and the Dutch East India Company, and the English established a trading house here in 1613 that closed in 1623, leaving the Dutch as the sole European presence. The city had about 28,000 residents in 2024 and depends on fishing, agriculture and tourism.