Nagasaki is famous for having over 500 remote islands as well as many steep, narrow pathways. Some roads are too narrow for vehicles to access. And to get to remote islands, you need to use a boat or a plane.

In the region with perhaps the most complex transport network, how are newspapers being delivered?

As part of its promotion, Nagasaki Shimbun GPS tracked their 2,285 newspaper delivery staff to show how newspapers are delivered in the region. The result is both complex and striking.

By air or sea, whatever it takes

Let's first look at how the delivery is actually being carried out. At 0.35am, when the day had only began (literally!), morning newspaper arrives in Nagasaki port, which are then transported by ships.

And at 8.20am, an airplane carrying the newspapers lands in Tsushima airport. The amazing thing is that they do this every morning.

As mentioned earlier, there are many narrow paths in Nagasaki - so much so that newspapers are often delivered by foot. Going up and down these steep path every single day is a lot of a work for the delivery staff!

How does it look then, when you GPS track all the delivery routes and visualize them on the map?

40 days of tracking time

Using 150 GPS units, it took 40 days to track all the delivery routes. And when you place the GPS tracking data onto the map, it looks like this:

There is already a lot of movement in 1.5 hours. How does it look after 3.5 hours?

You can see that the delivery area had spread, yet the ship is still in the ocean - still a long way to go then.

Fast-forwarding to the 8th hour, the plane carrying the newspaper lands in Tsushima. The ship is also docked at Goto, and delivery is well in progress.

Finally after 16.5 hours, the newspaper is delivered to all regions. Considering again that they do this every day, it's a lot of work for these delivery staff.

The video also shows some beautiful scenery of Nagasaki in high resolution, which is pretty stunning.

Also check out their website (PC only), which shows a minute-by-minute GPS tracking visualization. Do check it out if you are interested.