Nowadays, you can hardly see the natural beach in Tokyo Bay. Instead, there is a spectacular landscape of concrete and steel.

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"150 years ago, this place was nothing but the sea." A middle-aged man said to a little girl running in the park.

She gave him an astonished look, which reminds him of himself as a child, got excited after heard the same story. Even now, it takes him a while to recall he is right in the middle of the land reclaimed from the deep bottomless ocean.

 

 Land reclamation in Japan dates back to the early 11th century. It initially started with the construction of ports, and intended to solve the agricultural use of food production. Long before the environment protection was taken seriously, large scale land reclamation, gained public support, was widely conducted aiming at the economic growth. The development of chemical and heavy industry was attributed to the reclamation project, also followed by another demand, such as house and amusement construction on new reclaimed site.

 

 The land reclamation brought, looking on the bright side, huge benefits to Japan's bow-shaped, densely populated land, simultaneously damaged ecosystem along the coast on the other hand, resulted in extreme natural disaster which was not supposed to happen in the first place. The land reclamation in Japan has been slowing down due to reduced demand. Today, it is widely known that reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay ended up with dreary landfill site.