Kanmon Pedestrian Tunnel (Moji Side)
関門トンネル人道（門司側）
The Moji-side entrance to the Kanmon Pedestrian Tunnel, a 780-meter underwater walkway beneath the Kanmon Strait connecting Kyushu and Honshu. Construction of the roadway tunnel began in 1937 as strategic wartime infrastructure to ensure a protected Honshu-Kyushu link immune to aerial bombardment. The tunnel was bored through during WWII but not completed until 1958.
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History
The Kanmon Pedestrian Tunnel (関門トンネル人道, Kanmon Tonneru Jindō) is a unique 780-meter underwater walkway that passes beneath the Kanmon Strait, connecting Moji-ku in Kitakyushu (Kyushu) with Shimonoseki (Honshu). The Moji-side entrance is located near Mekari Shrine (和布刈神社) in the Mekari area of Moji-ku, with elevator access descending approximately 55-60 meters below sea level to the tunnel floor.
The pedestrian tunnel is the lower level of the Kanmon Roadway Tunnel (関門国道トンネル), built under National Route 2. Construction began on May 14, 1937, with the boring of a pilot tunnel. By 1939, the pilot tunnel was complete and main boring commenced. The tunnel was driven through successfully by December 1944, but the dire wartime shortage of materials and repeated air raids on the Kitakyushu industrial zone forced work to halt in mid-1945. The project, undertaken by the Home Ministry, also had evident strategic value — it would guarantee that the Honshu-Kyushu connection would survive even if the Kanmon Strait ferry routes and the nearby railway tunnel were destroyed by Allied bombing.
After the war, construction resumed in 1952 under the Road Improvement Special Measures Act as a toll road project. The roadway tunnel finally opened on March 9, 1958, after 21 years from initial groundbreaking. The undersea section features a distinctive circular cross-section: the upper two-thirds carry vehicular traffic while the lower one-third houses the pedestrian and bicycle passage.
During the final months of the Pacific War, the Kanmon Strait area was subjected to intensive American aerial mining under Operation Starvation (March-August 1945), which sharply reduced maritime traffic. The U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) also planned to destroy the two Kanmon railway tunnels with 50,000 pounds of explosives, training 250 agents for the sabotage mission. Japan's surrender on August 15, 1945 rendered these plans unnecessary.
Today the pedestrian tunnel is a popular tourist attraction where visitors can walk between Honshu and Kyushu for free in approximately 15 minutes. A prefectural boundary marker on the tunnel floor marks the midpoint between Fukuoka and Yamaguchi prefectures — one of the few places in the world where one can cross a prefectural border beneath the ocean. An exhibition facility on the tunnel's history, Kanmon Plaza, stands near the Shimonoseki-side entrance.