Hachinohe developed as a
castle town of the
Nanbu clan’s
Hachinohe Domain in the
Edo period. The port was a major fishing port, and a port of call for the coastal trade from
Osaka and
Edo to
Hokkaidō. In modern times, the area was earmarked for economic development by the
Meiji government, which hired Dutch
oyatoi gaikokujin civil engineer Anthonie Rouwenhorst Mulder (1848–1901) to redesign and rebuilt the port facilities along western lines. Immigration facilities were established in 1925, and the port was officially opened for foreign trade by the
Home Ministry in 1928. It was designated a primary seaport by the Japanese government in 1954. The port facilities suffered minor damage from a
tsunami caused by the
1960 Valdivia earthquake off
Chile and again in 1968 from the
Tokachi-oki earthquake. The port facilities were continually expanded from the 1970s through the 1990s, with additional berths and the construction of a port island. Regularly scheduled
container services to
Southeast Asia began in 1994, to
Korea and the
United States in 1998, and to
China in 1999. In 2001, the Hattaro Refrigerated Warehouse was completed, furnishing the Port of Hachinohe with a temperature control and humidification system for storage of agricultural products. In March 2011, the port facilities were severely damaged by a
tsunami from the
2011 Tōhoku earthquake. ==Shipping==