, also known as Hedo Point, is the northernmost point on
Okinawa Island
, officially , is the largest of the Okinawa Islands and the Ryukyu Islands, Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Islands of Japan in the Kyushu region. It is the smallest and least populated of the five Japanese archipelago, main islands of Japan. The island is ...
, located within
Kunigami Village. A cape jutting out north from the island, it faces the
East China Sea
The East China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean, located directly offshore from East China. China names the body of water along its eastern coast as "East Sea" (, ) due to direction, the name of "East China Sea" is otherwise ...
on the west, and the
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...
on the east. On a particularly clear day, the island of Yoron (
Yoronjima
, also known as Yoron, is one of the Amami Islands.
The island, 20.8 km2 (8 sq. mi.) in area, has a population of approximately 6,000 people, and is administered as the town of Yoron, Kagoshima. Much of the island is within the borders of t ...
) in
Kagoshima Prefecture
is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyushu and the Ryukyu Islands. Kagoshima Prefecture has a population of 1,527,019 (1 February 2025) and has a geographic area of 9,187 Square kilometre, km2 (3,547 Square m ...
can be seen on the horizon. Yoron Island is located approximately to the north.
Cape Hedo is part of
Okinawa Dai Sekirinzan Quasi-National Park, a prefectural park established in 1965 and re-established with the reversion of Okinawa to Japan in 1972.
In the ''Shōhō Kuniezu'', a
kuniezu, or series of
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
ese
provincial land maps created during the
Edo period
The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...
(1603 – 1868), Cape Hedo appears as "Heto misaki", or "Cape Heto". The expedition of
Commodore Perry (1794 – 1858) visited Cape Hedo and recorded it as "Cape Hope" in his ''
''. The ''Nihon Suiroshi'', a
navigation, pilot guide first issued in 1892, records that the cape is also known as Cape Kunigami and is commonly used as a nautical landmark.
The site has become a tourist destination, both for its location, and for the monument erected there commemorating the end of
US Occupation and return of Okinawa to Japanese sovereignty. The monument is popularly seen as a photo opportunity by tourists; as tourism to the site has grown, a number of restaurants, souvenir shops, and other tourist facilities have appeared near the site.
According to legends of
Okinawan history, Okinawan king
Gihon (r. c. 1248–1260) fled the capital after abdicating the throne and disappeared into the forest. He is said to have last been seen at the cliffs of Hedo Point (Hedo-misaki), the northernmost point on Okinawa Island.
See also
Tourism in Japan
References
Tourist attractions in Okinawa Prefecture
Headlands of Japan
Landforms of Okinawa Prefecture
Kunigami, Okinawa
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