Did you know Kansai Airport was built on an island reclaimed from 18-metre-deep sea?

Kansai International Airport, which serves the Osaka region in Japan, opened on 4 September 1994 on an artificial island in Osaka Bay and operates 24 hours a day. According to its operator, Kansai Airports, the island with the first runway was created by reclaiming sea at a depth of 18 metres, and the island where Terminal 1 stands is about 4 kilometres long.

The construction timeline began in 1974, when the Council for Civil Aviation recommended the Senshu offshore area as the best site. Seawall construction started in January 1987, the first island’s seawall was completed in June 1989 and reclamation was completed in December 1991. To prepare the soft seabed, numerous sand piles were inserted to push water out of the ground, and materials were moved by boat until the access bridge was finished.

The figures remain striking. The first island covers about 510 hectares and the second about 545 hectares planned in total. Runway A is 3,500 metres long, while Runway B, opened in August 2007, is 4,000 metres. The connecting bridge is 3,750 metres long, with six lanes. Terminal 1 measures 1,672 metres from end to end, and in 2001 the American Society of Civil Engineers named the airport a “Monuments of the Millennium” honoree. The operator says the airport receives approximately 30 million passengers a year.

The pages consulted do not give the distance from the shore, so travellers should check access times on the airport’s official website.