The geography of the encounter: where the ships sailed from, where they anchored, and where the century was decided. The map is schematic — distances are not to scale; every dot links to its entry.
Schematic — not to scale
The island off southern Kyushu where storm-blown Portuguese merchants landed in 1543 — the first documented Europeans in Japan. The arquebus they sold the island's young lord was copied within months, and “tanegashima” became the Japanese word for the gun itself.
Tanegashima, 1543: First Contact and the Gun that Changed Japan · From Reconquista to Tanegashima: How a Crusade on the Iberian Frontier Led to a Beach in Japan
Also appears in: From Ashikaga to Azuchi: Japan’s Road to the Sengoku Period · A Complete Timeline of Portuguese-Japanese Exchange, 1543–1650 · The Alvares Report: Europe’s First Portrait of Japan · Lord Fool to Demon King: The Life and Personality of Oda Nobunaga · The Imjin War: Hideyoshi’s Invasion of Korea and the War That Broke an Empire · The Battle of Sekigahara: Six Hours That Made the Shogunate · The Year of Two Embassies: Ieyasu's 1610 Overtures to China and Korea · Sakoku: How and Why Japan Closed Its Doors
The Satsuma port where Francis Xavier stepped ashore in 1549 to open the Japanese mission, guided home by the fugitive Anjirō — Japan's first Christian convert. The Shimazu lords' welcome cooled within a year, and the mission moved on; the faith's first foothold was also its first lesson in daimyō politics.
Francis Xavier and the Jesuit Mission in Japan
Also appears in: A Complete Timeline of Portuguese-Japanese Exchange, 1543–1650 · The Alvares Report: Europe’s First Portrait of Japan · The Christian Century: Faith and Power in Feudal Japan · Number of Christian Converts in Japan, 1549–1700 · Brother Lourenço of Hirado: The Blind Minstrel Who Built a Church · The Man Who Stayed: Cosme de Torres and the Long Decade of the Japanese Mission
The Matsura clan's island port in northwest Kyushu, the Portuguese ships' main harbour before Nagasaki and later the seat of the Dutch (1609) and English (1613) factories. For three decades it was the Protestant beachhead in Japan, until the Dutch were moved to Dejima in 1641.
Red Lion, Red Seal: The Dutch Arrival at Hirado in 1609 · William Adams and the Protestant Disruption
Also appears in: A Complete Timeline of Portuguese-Japanese Exchange, 1543–1650 · Sailing from Lisbon to Nagasaki: The Deadliest Journey in the World · Tanegashima, 1543: First Contact and the Gun that Changed Japan · The Christian Century: Faith and Power in Feudal Japan · Number of Christian Converts in Japan, 1549–1700 · Francis Xavier and the Jesuit Mission in Japan · Brother Lourenço of Hirado: The Blind Minstrel Who Built a Church · The Man Who Walked into Kyoto: Gaspar Vilela and the Mission to the Imperial Capital · +22 more
The fishing village Ōmura Sumitada opened to the Portuguese ship in 1571, ceded to the Jesuits in 1580, and confiscated by Hideyoshi in 1587 — by then the boom town of the Japan trade and the most Christian city in Asia. Under the shogunate it became the country's single supervised window on the world, and the stage for the persecution's grimmest theatre.
Nagasaki: How a Handful of Fishermen’s Huts Became the Trade Capital of the World · The Last Embassy: Macau's Final Gamble in Nagasaki, 1640
Also appears in: From Reconquista to Tanegashima: How a Crusade on the Iberian Frontier Led to a Beach in Japan · A Complete Timeline of Portuguese-Japanese Exchange, 1543–1650 · Sailing from Lisbon to Nagasaki: The Deadliest Journey in the World · The Christian Century: Faith and Power in Feudal Japan · Number of Christian Converts in Japan, 1549–1700 · Brother Lourenço of Hirado: The Blind Minstrel Who Built a Church · The Man Who Stayed: Cosme de Torres and the Long Decade of the Japanese Mission · O Desejado: Dom Sebastião and the Ghost That Haunted Two Empires · +51 more
The fan-shaped artificial island built in Nagasaki harbour in 1636 to confine the Portuguese — who were expelled three years later, before they had finished paying for it. From 1641 it held the Dutch instead, and for two centuries this hectare of reclaimed ground was Europe's only door into Japan.
Sakoku: How and Why Japan Closed Its Doors · Behind Closed Doors: How Japan Reinvented Itself in Isolation
Also appears in: A Complete Timeline of Portuguese-Japanese Exchange, 1543–1650 · The City at the Edge of Empire: A History of Portuguese Macau · The Nau do Trato: Portugal's Great Ship to Japan · Nagasaki: How a Handful of Fishermen’s Huts Became the Trade Capital of the World · A Nanban Kitchen: Period Recipes from the Portuguese-Japanese Culinary Exchange · Portuguese Words in Japanese: A Linguistic Archaeology · William Adams and the Protestant Disruption · The Company: How the VOC Conquered an Ocean and Inherited an Island · +11 more
The peninsula and islands east of Nagasaki, old Christian daimyō country, where taxation and persecution ignited the great rising of 1637–38. The rebels' last stand at Hara Castle cost some 37,000 lives and sealed the shogunate's case for expelling the Portuguese.
The Shimabara Rebellion: The Siege That Sealed Japan
Also appears in: A Complete Timeline of Portuguese-Japanese Exchange, 1543–1650 · Sailing from Lisbon to Nagasaki: The Deadliest Journey in the World · The Christian Century: Faith and Power in Feudal Japan · Number of Christian Converts in Japan, 1549–1700 · The Man Who Stayed: Cosme de Torres and the Long Decade of the Japanese Mission · The City at the Edge of Empire: A History of Portuguese Macau · Nagasaki: How a Handful of Fishermen’s Huts Became the Trade Capital of the World · The Tenshō Embassy: Japanese Princes in Renaissance Europe · +14 more
The Ōtomo capital in Bungo (modern Ōita), the mission's early headquarters under Ōtomo Sōrin's protection: site of Japan's first European hospital and, for a generation, the safest Christian ground in the country — until the Shimazu armies broke Ōtomo power in 1586–87.
The Man Who Stayed: Cosme de Torres and the Long Decade of the Japanese Mission · The Man Who Walked into Kyoto: Gaspar Vilela and the Mission to the Imperial Capital
Also appears in: Francis Xavier and the Jesuit Mission in Japan · Brother Lourenço of Hirado: The Blind Minstrel Who Built a Church · The Visitor: Alessandro Valignano and the Remaking of the Japan Mission · The Paper War: How the Catholic Mission to Japan Tore Itself Apart
The self-governing merchant city at the edge of the Kinai, Japan's great entrepôt and gunsmithy — the place that turned the Tanegashima arquebus into an industry. Its autonomy ended under Nobunaga, but its merchants and its muskets shaped every campaign of the unification.
The Demon King and the Monks: Oda Nobunaga’s War on Buddhist Power · The Weight of Silver: Measurements, Money, and the Mechanics of Nanban Commerce
Also appears in: A Complete Timeline of Portuguese-Japanese Exchange, 1543–1650 · Tanegashima, 1543: First Contact and the Gun that Changed Japan · Brother Lourenço of Hirado: The Blind Minstrel Who Built a Church · The City at the Edge of Empire: A History of Portuguese Macau · The Nau do Trato: Portugal's Great Ship to Japan · The Man Who Walked into Kyoto: Gaspar Vilela and the Mission to the Imperial Capital · Lord Fool to Demon King: The Life and Personality of Oda Nobunaga · The Price of a Person: The Portuguese Trade in Japanese Slaves · +9 more
The imperial capital — Miyako, “the capital”, to the missionaries — where Vilela opened the mission's second front in 1559. Its church, the Nanbanji, rose under Nobunaga's protection and fell with the first persecutions; the capital was where the mission's fortunes were always decided.
The Man Who Walked into Kyoto: Gaspar Vilela and the Mission to the Imperial Capital · The Azuchi Debate: Nobunaga's Rigged Trial and the Golden Age of Christian Japan
Also appears in: From Ashikaga to Azuchi: Japan’s Road to the Sengoku Period · The Tokugawa Persecution of Christians, 1617–1640: How the Shogunate Learned to Manufacture Apostates
Hideyoshi's castle city and the Toyotomi stronghold, built on the site of the Honganji fortress Nobunaga had spent a decade reducing. Its fall in the sieges of 1614–15 destroyed the Toyotomi cause — and with it the last great lordly refuge of Christian samurai.
The Siege of Osaka: The Last Battle and the Banners of the Cross · The Monkey Who Became God: The Life and Personality of Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Also appears in: A Complete Timeline of Portuguese-Japanese Exchange, 1543–1650 · Tanegashima, 1543: First Contact and the Gun that Changed Japan · Number of Christian Converts in Japan, 1549–1700 · The City at the Edge of Empire: A History of Portuguese Macau · The Nau do Trato: Portugal's Great Ship to Japan · The Man Who Walked into Kyoto: Gaspar Vilela and the Mission to the Imperial Capital · Southern Barbarian Chicken: The Improbable History of Chicken Nanban · The Weight of Silver: Measurements, Money, and the Mechanics of Nanban Commerce · +23 more
The Tokugawa capital (modern Tokyo), seat of the bakufu from 1603 and the place where the anti-Christian machinery was designed. What Edo decreed, Nagasaki executed: the geography of the persecution ran between these two cities.
The Dutiful Son: Tokugawa Hidetada and the Machinery of Persecution · Born to Rule: Tokugawa Iemitsu and the Perfection of Control
Also appears in: The Christian Century: Faith and Power in Feudal Japan · The City at the Edge of Empire: A History of Portuguese Macau · The Nau do Trato: Portugal's Great Ship to Japan · Southern Barbarian Chicken: The Improbable History of Chicken Nanban · A Nanban Kitchen: Period Recipes from the Portuguese-Japanese Culinary Exchange · The Weight of Silver: Measurements, Money, and the Mechanics of Nanban Commerce · From Tempura to Castella: The Culinary Legacy of the Nanban · João Rodrigues Tçuzzu: The Interpreter Who Spoke for an Empire · +26 more
The mountain northeast of Kyoto crowned by Enryaku-ji, headquarters of Tendai Buddhism and, for centuries, of its warrior-monks — the capital's other great power. Nobunaga burned the complex in 1571, killing thousands; the destruction broke Buddhist military power in the capital region, and the missionaries preached into the space it left.
The Demon King and the Monks: Oda Nobunaga’s War on Buddhist Power · The Azuchi Debate: Nobunaga's Rigged Trial and the Golden Age of Christian Japan
Also appears in: The Christian Century: Faith and Power in Feudal Japan · Brother Lourenço of Hirado: The Blind Minstrel Who Built a Church · The Man Who Walked into Kyoto: Gaspar Vilela and the Mission to the Imperial Capital · Lord Fool to Demon King: The Life and Personality of Oda Nobunaga · The Soldier Who Would Not Bend: Francisco Cabral and the Battle for Japan’s Soul · Takayama Ukon: The Samurai Who Chose God Over Japan · The Warlord Descends: Hideyoshi’s 1587 Kyūshū Campaign
Nobunaga's castle town on Lake Biwa, raised 1576–79 as the showpiece of his new order — seven storeys of gold and lacquer above the rice plain. The Jesuits received a plot for a church and seminary there, and in 1579 the castle hosted the religious debate that confirmed the mission in Nobunaga's favour. Castle and town burned weeks after his death in 1582.
The Azuchi Debate: Nobunaga's Rigged Trial and the Golden Age of Christian Japan · From Ashikaga to Azuchi: Japan’s Road to the Sengoku Period
Also appears in: The Christian Century: Faith and Power in Feudal Japan · Number of Christian Converts in Japan, 1549–1700 · Brother Lourenço of Hirado: The Blind Minstrel Who Built a Church · The Man Who Stayed: Cosme de Torres and the Long Decade of the Japanese Mission · Lord Fool to Demon King: The Life and Personality of Oda Nobunaga · The Soldier Who Would Not Bend: Francisco Cabral and the Battle for Japan’s Soul · The Demon King and the Monks: Oda Nobunaga’s War on Buddhist Power · Takayama Ukon: The Samurai Who Chose God Over Japan · +2 more
Castle town of Date Masamune, capital of the great northern domain. At Tsukinoura on its coast the galleon San Juan Bautista was built and launched in 1613, carrying the Keichō embassy toward Mexico and Rome — the only Japanese-built ship of the century to cross the Pacific twice.
The Keichō Embassy: A Samurai in the Court of the Spanish King
The capital of Portugal's Estado da Índia and the administrative heart of the Asian empire — every Japan voyage, missionary, and dispatch passed through it. The India-bound Cabral and the Japan-bound Valignano alike answered to Goa before Rome.
From Reconquista to Tanegashima: How a Crusade on the Iberian Frontier Led to a Beach in Japan · The Visitor: Alessandro Valignano and the Remaking of the Japan Mission
Also appears in: A Complete Timeline of Portuguese-Japanese Exchange, 1543–1650 · Sailing from Lisbon to Nagasaki: The Deadliest Journey in the World · Francis Xavier and the Jesuit Mission in Japan · The Man Who Stayed: Cosme de Torres and the Long Decade of the Japanese Mission · O Desejado: Dom Sebastião and the Ghost That Haunted Two Empires · The City at the Edge of Empire: A History of Portuguese Macau · The Nau do Trato: Portugal's Great Ship to Japan · The Man Who Walked into Kyoto: Gaspar Vilela and the Mission to the Imperial Capital · +23 more
The strait city taken by Albuquerque in 1511, the hinge of the route between the Indian Ocean and the China seas. Xavier met Anjirō here in 1547 — the conversation that turned the Society of Jesus toward Japan.
From Reconquista to Tanegashima: How a Crusade on the Iberian Frontier Led to a Beach in Japan · Sailing from Lisbon to Nagasaki: The Deadliest Journey in the World
Also appears in: A Complete Timeline of Portuguese-Japanese Exchange, 1543–1650 · The Alvares Report: Europe’s First Portrait of Japan · Number of Christian Converts in Japan, 1549–1700 · Francis Xavier and the Jesuit Mission in Japan · The Man Who Stayed: Cosme de Torres and the Long Decade of the Japanese Mission · O Desejado: Dom Sebastião and the Ghost That Haunted Two Empires · The City at the Edge of Empire: A History of Portuguese Macau · The Nau do Trato: Portugal's Great Ship to Japan · +21 more
The Portuguese settlement on the China coast from the 1550s, licensed by the Ming and enriched by exactly one privilege: the legal middleman's seat between China's silk and Japan's silver. The Japan trade built its churches and paid its garrison; the 1639 expulsion nearly broke it.
The City at the Edge of Empire: A History of Portuguese Macau · The Nau do Trato: Portugal's Great Ship to Japan
Also appears in: From Reconquista to Tanegashima: How a Crusade on the Iberian Frontier Led to a Beach in Japan · A Complete Timeline of Portuguese-Japanese Exchange, 1543–1650 · Sailing from Lisbon to Nagasaki: The Deadliest Journey in the World · The Christian Century: Faith and Power in Feudal Japan · Number of Christian Converts in Japan, 1549–1700 · The Man Who Stayed: Cosme de Torres and the Long Decade of the Japanese Mission · O Desejado: Dom Sebastião and the Ghost That Haunted Two Empires · Lord Fool to Demon King: The Life and Personality of Oda Nobunaga · +43 more
The Spanish capital of the Philippines, terminus of the Pacific galleon and the mission's Franciscan gateway into Japan — a rivalry the Jesuits never welcomed. The San Felipe's wreck in 1596 lit the fuse of the first great martyrdom; Takayama Ukon died in exile here in 1615.
The San Felipe Incident: The Shipwreck That Sank a Mission · Takayama Ukon: The Samurai Who Chose God Over Japan
Also appears in: A Complete Timeline of Portuguese-Japanese Exchange, 1543–1650 · Sailing from Lisbon to Nagasaki: The Deadliest Journey in the World · Number of Christian Converts in Japan, 1549–1700 · Brother Lourenço of Hirado: The Blind Minstrel Who Built a Church · O Desejado: Dom Sebastião and the Ghost That Haunted Two Empires · The City at the Edge of Empire: A History of Portuguese Macau · The Nau do Trato: Portugal's Great Ship to Japan · The Man Who Walked into Kyoto: Gaspar Vilela and the Mission to the Imperial Capital · +22 more
The Siamese royal capital and free port on the Chao Phraya, one of the great destinations of the red-seal trade — home to a Japanese quarter a thousand strong and a Portuguese settlement beside it. There, in 1628, a Spanish galleon's seizure of a shogunal-licensed junk set off the diplomatic crisis that hardened Japan against Manila.
Also appears in: Tanegashima, 1543: First Contact and the Gun that Changed Japan · A Nanban Kitchen: Period Recipes from the Portuguese-Japanese Culinary Exchange · William Adams and the Protestant Disruption · Prize of War: The Dutch Captures of the Santo António