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The Port of Nagoya is a major gateway to Japan's massive economic engine but it also is an integral multi-faceted part of Japan's fourth largest city. Its main business is cargo transportation, but its 4,100 hectares of land (and 8,300 hectares of water) also includes an Aquarium, and a floating Antarctic museum, both of which are at Garden Pier, as well as many other recreational facilities including a golf course, beach, and sport fishing area.

The port has a ferry terminal serving ferry routes connecting Nagoya to Sendai, Tomakomai in Hokkaido, Osaka, and Naha in Okinawa. In addition to sea transportation, the port was involved in the construction of the new Chubu International Airport located on an artificial island on the southern outer limits of the harbour. The combined sea, air, and land links, through a strong regional road network, helps the port retain its status as an essential distribution center for the entire country.

Garden Pier

Garden Pier's most famous attraction is the Aquarium. Divided into two pavillions, the North side, opened in 2001, houses one of the world's largest pools. It features dolphins and other marine mammals. The Southern pavillion, opened in 1992, hosts 30,000 living creatures of about 350 species which inhabit five different water areas stretching from Japan to the Antarctic.

Aquarium performance pool

The entry fee is 2000 yen (adults and high school students). Opening hours are:

The floating Fuji Antarctic Museum is moored on the opposite side of the pier. The museum itself is an expedition ship that explored the Antarctic for 18 years between 1965 and 1983. The interior of the ship is reproduced as it was during its service, and videos, panels and diorama are used to introduce the nature of the Antarctic as well as how the researches were conducted.

The Nagoya Maritime Museum and Port of Nagoya Trade Exhibition Room is housed in the Port Building immediately south of the Antarctic Museum. Both facilities provide information about the activities and history of the port and the top floor of the 63-meter high building has an observation deck that offers views of the entire port area.

Other recreational facilities at Garden Pier include a small amusement park, with a standard giant ferris wheel, and a few shops inside the Jetty shopping center. The office of the Nagoya Port Authority, the administrative body of the port, is also located nearby.

How to get to Garden Pier

• From Kanayama Station: Take the Meijo Subway line train heading south and destined for Nagoyako. When disembarking, walk in the same direction as the train to Exit 1. Once you reach street level, the pier will be in front of you across the street and to the right. Cost is 200 yen.
• From Nagoya Station: Take the Higashiyama Line train heading east to Sakae station. At Sakae station, transfer to the Meijo Subway line train heading south and destined for Nagoyako. When disembarking, walk in the same direction as the train to Exit 1. Once you reach street level, the pier will be in front of you across the street and to the right. Cost is 230 yen.

Cargo trade

Overhead view of part of the port

There were over 41,000 ship arrivals in the port in 2002, 9,000 of which were made by ocean-going vessels originating from or destined to the roughly 150 trading economies with which Nagoya has business.

The Nagoya port mainly serves the Chubu region of Japan which is composed of nine prefectures. The region is a major automobile production center for companies such as Toyota and Mitsubishi but there are also steel plants, oil refineries, aerospace companies, and machine tool, appliance, porcelain, and textile manufacturers. The GDP of the region was 90 trillion yen in the year 2000 and accounts for 18% of the total GDP of Japan. From industries such as these, the port exported over 61 million tonnes of goods in 2002, including over 1.3 million cars. These exports included almost 39 million tonnes of foreign trade worth about 7 trillion yen.

Since Japan is limited in natural resources, the Port of Nagoya regularly receives bulk commodities such as liquid natural gas, crude oil, iron ore, coal, and agricultural products such as animal feed and fertilizer. In 2002, Nagoya imported 97 million tonnes of goods, almost 70 million tonnes of which were foreign trade worth about 2.6 trillion yen.

The port has 129 public berths and 161 private berths spread out across 17 "bases", many of which are specialized to accommodate certain industries or transport modes. Some are designated to handle a particular class of products or commodities such as timber, grain, and petroleum products. For example Shimpo pier, on the east side of the port, exports automobiles and has a storage capacity of 38,000 vehicles. The Port of Nagoya handled 28% of the total number of cars exported from Japan in 2002.

Others are production bases which often receive materials to make heavy industrial goods on site, such as iron, steel, petrochemicals, and large scale machinery. The Tokai Motohama Pier on the east side of the port unloads 60,000 tonnes of iron ore and coal daily to produce iron and steel which is then shipped from another berth on the same site.

NCB Terminal

The container shipping sector was the most active in the port in 2002 in terms of foreign vessel traffic and cargo value. Containerized trade at the Port of Nagoya was the fourth largest in the country in 2002 and ranks the port 23rd highest in container handling in the world. The 1.9 million TEUs (Twenty-foot Equivalent Units) handled that year was virtually equal between exports (964,000 TEUs) and imports (963,000 TEUs).

Since the 1970's, containers have grown to be the means by which higher valued lower volume manufactured goods are shipped. Ports around the world have been competing heavily to develop facilities to not only handle containers, but also to draw, support and develop industries that rely on such facilities to conduct their foreign trade. As such, the largest projects under development within the Port of Nagoya, outside of the airport, are the addition of three container berths to the twelve already in existence. The new facilities are scheduled to be completed between 2008 and 2012 and will be designed to accommodate the increasingly larger container ships now being constructed.

The top containerized export from the port in 2002, in terms of tonnage, was auto parts which include "Completed Knock-Downs" - vehicle components which are forwarded to overseas plants for assembly into complete units. Auto parts make up almost 40% of containerized exports, followed by industrial and electrical machinery, rubber products, and chemicals. There is no single dominant containerized import into Nagoya in 2002, but amongst them included clothing, auto parts, furniture, and agricultural products such as animal feed and fertilizer.

Tours - Japan Discovery visits the Port of Nagoya.
Click here for more information regarding when Discovery visits this destination.

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