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Nagasaki’s hundreds of beautiful islands get newspapers from boats, planes, 2,285 delivery people

Casey Baseel Sep 10, 2015
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Although Nagasaki is one of the most populous cities on the island of Kyushu, many neighborhoods are built on steep coastal hillsides that are inaccessible by car. Then there’s the rest of Nagasaki Prefecture, which is dotted with isolated communities on its hundreds of islands.

But with the prefecture’s unique beauty and culture, it’s not hard to see why many residents of Nagasaki are happy living where they do. And while there may be some inconveniences that come with living in such remote homes, they can at least be assured of receiving their newspapers every day, as this surprisingly moving video of the incredibly complex delivery process shows.

The prefecture’s major newspaper, The Nagasaki Shimbun, has been in business for 125 years. As the publication’s name implies, it aims to deliver the news to all of Nagasaki, which is no simple task.

The Nagasaki Shimbun recently embarked on a data-mapping project called The Way. By distributing GPS tracking devices to it delivery personnel, the company created an animated representation, viewable here, of how its papers make their way from the print shop to their readers.

But while that gives an idea of the overall scale of the network, this video provides a more detailed, and personal, look at its individual parts.

Nagasaki City is famous for how beautiful its skyline looks at night, but even before the lights are turned back off, Nagasaki Shimbun employees are hard at work. Printing begins shortly after midnight, and once the papers come off the presses, it’s time for the delivery personnel to take over.

Some papers are delivered by van or motorcycle, but not every home, even in Nagasaki City itself, can be reached by motor vehicle.

In the more mountainous parts of town, newspaper carriers literally carry the newspapers, making their rounds to subscribers’ addresses on foot.

Of course, no amount of walking alone is going to get those papers to homes on one of the prefecture’s 594 islands, so many of them make the journey by pre-dawn ship.

And in the most extreme cases, some are even shipped by plane.

But this is all in a day’s work for Nagasaki Shimbun’s 2,285 delivery people. After all, if they didn’t get up and do all this while most people are still tucked snugly in bed, their readers wouldn’t be able to spread their papers out on the breakfast table next to their morning coffee. And while it looks like an incredibly busy job, at least while they’re dropping the papers off they get to enjoy views like this.

Related: The Way
Source: Fundo
Top image: YouTube/egawauemon
Insert images: The Way, YouTube/egawauemon