Few people cared about the derelict Japanese island of Hashima until 2012, when its crumbling piers and abandoned apartment buildings were used as a backdrop for the secret island in the James Bond movie "Skyfall."
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Take a look around the extraordinary derelict island featured in the James Bond movie 'Skyfall'
Hashima's old coal factory seen through striking Google Street View images.
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One photographer, Kevin Dooley, has documented the entire island — and it's pretty spectacular.
People first settled Hashima because of nearby coal resources. The Mitsubishi Group bought the island in 1890 to use it as a base for coal extraction from the sea.
This is what Bond villain Raoul Silva's island looks like in "Skyfall."
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Bond and Severine are brought to the island to be killed by Silva, a villainous rogue MI6 agent.
The movie used exterior scenes of the island as a backdrop.
But the action wasn't filmed there — it was meshed together with CGI in postproduction.
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This the real island you can see today on Google.
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It was first populated in 1887.
Factory buildings like this one were vital to production during the industrialisation of Japan.
Japan's first large concrete building was built on Hashima. It stood at nine stories tall.
Hashima, and its multitude of enchanting apartment blocks, is entirely surrounded by a sea wall — just visible on the right of this image.
Peak population on the island was 5,259, with a density of 835 per hectare.
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When petroleum started to replace coal in the 1960s, coal mines on Hashima started closing down.
The island was abandoned in 1974.
The article was originally written by Joshua Barrie.
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