|
Yonaguni, Okinawa
is a town located entirely on Yonaguni Island in Yaeyama District, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. It is the westernmost municipality in Japan, and is known for billfish fishing and as a diving spot. In 1987, divers discovered the Yonaguni Monument, a rock formation that some believe may be man-made. It is also home to two Ryūkyūan writing systems, pictographic "kaida-di" (also used on Ishigaki and Taketomi islands where it is called "kaida-ji") and the symbols used to indicate family names, "dāhan" (also used on Ishigaki Island where they are called "yāban"). History Presently, the oldest confirmed ruins are the ruins in Tuguru Beach. Due to the southern style stone tools found, it is thought that a culture influenced by Southeast Asia existed here at one time. After this point, the history of the island of Yonaguni is unclear, but in the Gusuku Era, settlements were formed on the top of the plateau. The Shima Nakamura Ruins are one example, and it is known for being the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Okinawa Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 km2 (880 sq mi). Naha is the capital and largest city of Okinawa Prefecture, with other major cities including Okinawa, Uruma, and Urasoe. Okinawa Prefecture encompasses two thirds of the Ryukyu Islands, including the Okinawa, Daitō and Sakishima groups, extending southwest from the Satsunan Islands of Kagoshima Prefecture to Taiwan ( Hualien and Yilan Counties). Okinawa Prefecture's largest island, Okinawa Island, is the home to a majority of Okinawa's population. Okinawa Prefecture's indigenous ethnic group are the Ryukyuan people, who also live in the Amami Islands of Kagoshima Prefecture. Okinawa Prefecture was ruled by the Ryukyu Kingdom from 1429 and unofficially annexed by Japan after the Invasion of Ryukyu in 1609. Okinawa Prefecture was officially founded in 1879 by the Empire ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and north-west of mainland Australia. Southeast Asia is bordered to the north by East Asia, to the west by South Asia and the Bay of Bengal, to the east by Oceania and the Pacific Ocean, and to the south by Australia (continent), Australia and the Indian Ocean. Apart from the British Indian Ocean Territory and two out of atolls of Maldives, 26 atolls of Maldives in South Asia, Maritime Southeast Asia is the only other subregion of Asia that lies partly within the Southern Hemisphere. Mainland Southeast Asia is completely in the Northern Hemisphere. East Timor and the southern portion of Indonesia are the only parts that are south of the Equator. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ryukyus
The , also known as the or the , are a chain of Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Taiwan: the Ōsumi, Tokara, Amami, Okinawa, and Sakishima Islands (further divided into the Miyako and Yaeyama Islands), with Yonaguni the westernmost. The larger are mostly high islands and the smaller mostly coral. The largest is Okinawa Island. The climate of the islands ranges from humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification ''Cfa'') in the north to tropical rainforest climate (Köppen climate classification ''Af'') in the south. Precipitation is very high and is affected by the rainy season and typhoons. Except the outlying Daitō Islands, the island chain has two major geologic boundaries, the Tokara Strait (between the Tokara and Amami Islands) and the Kerama Gap (between the Okinawa and Miyako Islands). The islands beyond the Tokara Strait are characterized by their coral reefs. The Ōsumi and Tokara Islands, the northernmost of the islands, fall un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yonaguni Monument
The , also known as , is a submerged rock formation off the coast of Yonaguni, the southernmost of the Ryukyu Islands, in Japan. It lies approximately a hundred kilometres east of Taiwan. Marine geologist Masaaki Kimura claims that the formations are man-made stepped monoliths. These claims have been described as pseudoarchaeological. Neither the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs nor the government of Okinawa Prefecture recognise the features as important cultural artifacts and neither government agency has carried out research or preservation work on the site. Discovery The sea off Yonaguni is a popular diving location during the winter months because of its large population of hammerhead sharks. In 1986, while looking for a good place to observe the sharks, Kihachiro Aratake, a director of the Yonaguni-Cho Tourism Association, noticed some singular seabed formations resembling architectural structures. Shortly thereafter, a group of scientists directed by Masaaki Kimur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Underwater Diving
Underwater diving, as a human activity, is the practice of descending below the water's surface to interact with the environment. It is also often referred to as diving, an ambiguous term with several possible meanings, depending on context. Immersion in water and exposure to high ambient pressure have physiological effects that limit the depths and duration possible in ambient pressure diving. Humans are not physiologically and anatomically well-adapted to the environmental conditions of diving, and various equipment has been developed to extend the depth and duration of human dives, and allow different types of work to be done. In ambient pressure diving, the diver is directly exposed to the pressure of the surrounding water. The ambient pressure diver may dive on breath-hold (freediving) or use breathing apparatus for scuba diving or surface-supplied diving, and the saturation diving technique reduces the risk of decompression sickness (DCS) after long-duration deep dives ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billfish
The term billfish refers to a group of saltwater predatory fish characterised by prominent pointed bills (rostra), and by their large size; some are longer than . Extant billfish include sailfish and marlin, which make up the family Istiophoridae; and swordfish, sole member of the family Xiphiidae. They are apex predators which feed on a wide variety of smaller fish, crustaceans and cephalopods. These two families are sometimes classified as belonging to the order Istiophoriformes, a group which originated around 71 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous, with the two families diverging around 15 million years ago in the Late Miocene. However, they are also classified as being closely related to the mackerels and tuna within the suborder Scombroidei of the order Perciformes. However, the 5th edition of the ''Fishes of the World'' does recognise the Istiophoriformes as a valid order, albeit including the Sphyraenidae, the barracudas. Billfish are pelagic and highly migrato ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extreme Points Of Japan
The extreme points of Japan include the coordinates that are farthest north, south, east and west in Japan, and the ones that are at the highest and the lowest elevations in the country. Japan's northernmost point is disputed, because Japan considers it to be on Iturup, an island de facto governed by Russia. The southernmost point is Okinotorishima; the westernmost is Cape Irizaki on Yonaguni Island in Okinawa Prefecture, and the easternmost is Minami Torishima. The highest point in Japan is the summit of Mount Fuji at 3,776.24 m (12,389 ft). At 150 m (492 ft) below sea level, the bottom of Hachinohe mine is the country's lowest point. The surface of Hachirōgata is Japan's lowest natural point at 4 m (13 ft) below sea level. With the exception of Cape Irizaki, the westernmost location of Japan, all other extreme locations are uninhabited. Japan extends from 20° to 45° north latitude (Okinotorishima to Benten-jima) and from 122° to 153° east lon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north toward the East China Sea, Philippine Sea, and Taiwan in the south. Japan is a part of the Ring of Fire, and spans Japanese archipelago, an archipelago of List of islands of Japan, 6852 islands covering ; the five main islands are Hokkaido, Honshu (the "mainland"), Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa Island, Okinawa. Tokyo is the Capital of Japan, nation's capital and largest city, followed by Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kobe, and Kyoto. Japan is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eleventh most populous country in the world, as well as one of the List of countries and dependencies by population density, most densely populated and Urbanization by country, urbanized. About three-fourths of Geography of Japan, the c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yonaguni Island
, one of the Yaeyama Islands, is the westernmost inhabited island of Japan, lying from the east coast of Taiwan, between the East China Sea and the Pacific Ocean proper. The island is administered as the town of Yonaguni, Yaeyama Gun, Okinawa, and there are three settlements: Sonai, Kubura, and Higawa. History Early human migration from Taiwan to Yonaguni island has long been the subject of scholarly debate. In 2019, a team of Japanese and Taiwanese researchers succeeded in completing the two-day journey from Cape Wushibi in Taitung County to Yonaguni island along the Kuroshio current in a dugout canoe based on technology and materials from 30,000 years ago. Otherwise, the early history of Yonaguni remains vague. The first written record that ever mentions the island is a 1477 Korean document (''Chosen Hyōryūmin no Yaeyama kenbunroku''), an account of several fishermen from the current Jeju Province who drifted there. A legendary female leader, San’ai Isoba, is said to ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Towns In Japan
A town (町; ''chō'' or ''machi'') is a local administrative unit in Japan. It is a local public body along with prefecture (''ken'' or other equivalents), city (''shi''), and village (''mura''). Geographically, a town is contained within a district. Note that the same word (町; ''machi'' or ''chō'') is also used in names of smaller regions, usually a part of a ward in a city. This is a legacy of when smaller towns were formed on the outskirts of a city, only to eventually merge into it. Towns See also * Municipalities of Japan * Japanese addressing system The Japanese addressing system is used to identify a specific location in Japan. When written in Japanese characters, addresses start with the largest geographical entity and proceed to the most specific one. When written in Latin characters, ad ... References {{reflist External links "Large_City_System_of_Japan";_graphic_shows_towns_compared_with_other_Japanese_city_types_at_p._1_[PDF_7_of_40/nowiki>">DF_7_of_4 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Okinawan Language
The Okinawan language (, , , ) or Central Okinawan, is a Northern Ryukyuan languages, Ryukyuan language spoken primarily in the southern half of the Okinawa Island, island of Okinawa, as well as in the surrounding islands of Kerama Islands, Kerama, Kumejima, Okinawa, Kumejima, Tonaki, Okinawa, Tonaki, Aguni, Okinawa, Aguni and a number of smaller peripheral islands. Central Okinawan distinguishes itself from the speech of Northern Okinawa, which is classified independently as the Kunigami language. Both languages are listed by UNESCO as Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, endangered. Though Okinawan encompasses a number of local dialects, the Shuri, Okinawa, Shuri–Naha variant is generally recognized as the ''de facto'' standard, as it had been used as the official language of the Ryukyu Kingdom since the reign of King Shō Shin (1477–1526). Moreover, as the former capital of Shuri was built around the royal palace, the language used by the royal court became the regio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
