is a

volcanic A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often fo ...

Japanese island administered by the

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

Metropolitan Government. It is one of the Izu Seven Islands, group of the seven northern islands of the Izu archipelago, and is located approximately south of Tōkyō and south of Shimoda

Shizuoka Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Shizuoka Prefecture has a population of 3,555,818 and has a geographic area of . Shizuoka Prefecture borders Kanagawa Prefecture to the east, Yamanashi Pref ...

. The island is the larger inhabited component of the village of Niijima Village, Ōshima Subprefecture of Tokyo Metropolis, which also contains the neighboring island of

Shikine-jima is a volcano, volcanic Islands of Japan, Japanese island in the Philippine Sea.Louis-Frédéric, Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Izu Shotō'',"''Japan Encyclopedia,'' p. 412. The island is administered by Tokyo, Tōkyō and located approx ...

and the smaller, uninhabited Jinai-tō. Nii-jima is also within the boundaries of the

Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park is a national park in Yamanashi, Shizuoka, and Kanagawa Prefectures, and western Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. It consists of Mount Fuji, Fuji Five Lakes, Hakone, the Izu Peninsula, and the Izu Islands. Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park covers . Rat ...

. On the southern tip of Nii-jima, there was formerly a launch site for experimental and

sounding rocket A sounding rocket or rocketsonde, sometimes called a research rocket or a suborbital rocket, is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its sub-orbital flight. The rockets are often ...

Geography

Nii-jima is unusual amongst the Izu Islands in that it has an elongated shape. Measuring approximately long by wide, it has a land area of 23.87 km². The island is made of eight rhyolitic lava domes in two groups at the northern and southern ends of the island, separated by a low, flat

isthmus An isthmus (; : isthmuses or isthmi) is a narrow piece of land connecting two larger areas across an expanse of water by which they are otherwise separated. A tombolo is an isthmus that consists of a spit or bar, and a strait is the sea count ...

. The complex in the southern portion of the island and the Achiyama lava dome at the northern end were formed during Nii-jima's only historical eruptions in the 9th century AD. The northern end also contains , the island's highest point, at . The Atchiyama rhyolitic lava dome and neighboring Wakago basaltic pyroclastic deposit contain rare xenoliths composed of gabbro. These gabbroic rock fragments originated from magma bodies that were located beneath the rhyolitic volcano. Shikine-jima and Jinnai-to are part of the same complex, and form separate islands to the southwest and west of Nii-jima. Rhyolite lava gives the island its famed white cliffs and white sandy beaches Nii-jima is prone to earthquake swarms. According to the US Geological Survey map, the area around Nii-jima averages 10–20 earthquakes, with a magnitude of 5 or greater, each year. However, the often repeated legend that Nii-jima and Shikine-jima were once a single island that was separated by huge

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from , ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions (including detonations, ...

caused by the 1703 Genroku earthquake has no basis in geology.

Climate

Nature

Even though Nii-jima is located relatively close to

Honshu , historically known as , is the largest of the four main islands of Japan. It lies between the Pacific Ocean (east) and the Sea of Japan (west). It is the list of islands by area, seventh-largest island in the world, and the list of islands by ...

, the small population and lower exploitation has allowed the island's natural wildlife to be well preserved, and many varieties can be seen. Riding on the Kuroshio current, many oceanic species and birds migrate thorough the island, Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins that have seemingly moved to here, and other areas, from Mikurajima inhabit the near shores; along with nesting

sea turtle Sea turtles (superfamily Chelonioidea), sometimes called marine turtles, are reptiles of the order Testudines and of the suborder Cryptodira. The seven existing species of sea turtles are the flatback, green, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerh ...

s, and the occasional visiting

manta ray Manta rays are large Batoidea, rays belonging to the genus ''Mobula'' (formerly its own genus ''Manta''). The larger species, ''Giant oceanic manta ray, M. birostris'', reaches in width, while the smaller, ''Reef manta ray, M. alfredi'', reac ...

. Almost completely wiped out, due to past hunting, biodiversity of other marine mammals, such as

cetacean Cetacea (; , ) is an infraorder of aquatic mammals belonging to the order Artiodactyla that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises. Key characteristics are their fully aquatic lifestyle, streamlined body shape, often large size and exclusively c ...

s and

pinniped Pinnipeds (pronounced ), commonly known as seals, are a widely range (biology), distributed and diverse clade of carnivorous, fin-footed, semiaquatic, mostly marine mammals. They comprise the extant taxon, extant families Odobenidae (whose onl ...

s, have become very small and today are only a remnant of their historical numbers.

Sperm whale The sperm whale or cachalot (''Physeter macrocephalus'') is the largest of the toothed whales and the largest toothed predator. It is the only living member of the Genus (biology), genus ''Physeter'' and one of three extant species in the s ...

s and

humpback whale The humpback whale (''Megaptera novaeangliae'') is a species of baleen whale. It is a rorqual (a member of the family Balaenopteridae) and is the monotypic taxon, only species in the genus ''Megaptera''. Adults range in length from and weigh u ...

s, are the most likely of the larger whales to be observed around Nii-jima, using the island as either a resting ground or a migratory collider from, and to, the wintering grounds around the

Bonin Islands The Bonin Islands, also known as the , is a list of islands of Japan, Japanese archipelago of over 30 subtropical and Island#Tropical islands, tropical islands located around SSE of Tokyo and northwest of Guam. The group as a whole has a total ...

. There are also sightings of extremely rare and critically endangered species such as the northern elephant seal (a vagrant was captured in 1989, making it the first record of the species in Japan) and

North Pacific right whale The North Pacific right whale (''Eubalaena japonica'') is a very large, thickset baleen whale species that is extremely rare and endangered. The Northeast Pacific population, which summers in the southeastern Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska, may ...

s (one whale stayed just several meters off the port in 2011, and kept tail-slapping continuously for several hours).The second record of houling-out by an elephant seal and another sighting of a right whales occurred in almost exactly the same area of Tateyama. Additionally the, possibly now-extinct,

Japanese sea lion The Japanese sea lion (''Zalophus japonicus'') (, ) was an aquatic mammal that became extinct in the 1970s. It was considered to be a subspecies of the related California sea lion (''Z. californianus'') until 2003. They inhabited the western Nort ...

used to breed in the Izu Islands and in the vicinity of Nii-jima, there was a colony on Udone-shima. Although on a different island, in the past a

saltwater crocodile The saltwater crocodile (''Crocodylus porosus'') is a crocodilian native to saltwater habitats, brackish wetlands and freshwater rivers from India's east coast across Southeast Asia and the Sundaland to northern Australia and Micronesia. It ha ...

has appeared on

Hachijō-jima is a volcano, volcanic Islands of Japan, Japanese island in the Philippine Sea. It is about south of the special wards of Tokyo. It is part of the Izu Islands, Izu archipelago and within the Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park. Its only municipalit ...

Important Bird Area

The island, along with Shikine-jima and some uninhabited islets nearby, have been recognised as an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

(IBA) by

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding i ...

because they support populations of Japanese murrelets, Japanese wood pigeons, Pleske's grasshopper warblers, Ijima's leaf-warblers and Izu thrushes.

Access

Niijima airport etc from air 2023 Jan 29

Nii-jima is 2 hours and 20 minutes away by jet boat from Takeshiba Sanbashi Pier, in Tokyo, operated by Tōkai Kisen. Tōkai Kisen also operates a 9-hour overnight ferry. The ferry leaves Takeshiba Sanbashi Pier at 22h00 (23h00 in the summer months) and arrives early morning in Izu Ōshima, before continuing on to Toshima, Nii-jima (8h30, 7h30 in summer), Shikine-jima and Kōzu-shima. The ferry then returns following the same route, leaving Nii-jima at around 12h00 and docking in Tokyo at 19h00. In rough weather, the ferry may be unable to dock at Nii-jima. There are daily flights, weather permitting, from Chōfu Airport located in western Tokyo. The flight takes approximately 35minutes. Other ferries leave from Shimoda,

. Niijima-mura also operates a small local ferry between Nii-jima and Shikine-jima with 3 boats per day.

History

Nii-jima has been inhabited since prehistoric times, and archaeologists have found numerous remains from the

Jōmon period In Japanese history, the is the time between , during which Japan was inhabited by the Jōmon people, a diverse hunter-gatherer and early agriculturalist population united by a common culture, which reached a considerable degree of sedentism an ...

, including stone and ceramic utensils. 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 ...

, as with

, Nii-jima was used as a place of exile for convicts. The practice was discontinued after the

Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored Imperial House of Japan, imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Althoug ...

Industry

Main industries in Nii-jima include commercial and sports fishing, construction, ''koga'' rock mining, and tourism. There is also some small scale farming. Koga stone, a pumice-derived rock of

rhyolite Rhyolite ( ) is the most silica-rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained (aphanitic) in texture (geology), texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals (phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained matri ...

was utilized as house building material. Now its silica component is used to make transparent green

glass art Glass art refers to individual works of art that are substantially or wholly made of glass. It ranges in size from monumental works and installation pieces to wall hangings and windows, to works of art made in studios and factories, including gl ...

. It can also be used to make ''moyai'' art. The stone is indigenous only to Nii-jima and

Lipari Lipari (; ) is a ''comune'' including six of seven islands of the Aeolian Islands (Lipari, Vulcano, Panarea, Stromboli, Filicudi and Alicudi) and it is located in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the northern coast of Sicily, Southern Italy; it is ...

Island, Italy.

Tourism

Sites

Maehama Beach on the western side of Nii-jima sees many wind surfers. The

triathlon A triathlon is an endurance multisport race consisting of Swimming (sport), swimming, Cycle sport, cycling, and running over various distances. Triathletes compete for fastest overall completion time, racing each segment sequentially with the ...

and ocean water swims take place here.

Mount Fuji is an active stratovolcano located on the Japanese island of Honshu, with a summit elevation of . It is the highest mountain in Japan, the second-highest volcano on any Asian island (after Mount Kerinci on the Indonesian island of Sumatra), a ...

can often be seen from Maehama. Habushi Beach, on the eastern side of the island, is a nationally protected reserve with its waves and white sand, and is a good location for

surfing Surfing is a surface water sport in which an individual, a surfer (or two in tandem surfing), uses a board to ride on the forward section, or face, of a moving wave of water, which usually carries the surfer towards the shore. Waves suita ...

. The beach is approximately 6.5 km long and is overlooked by ''koga'' volcanic cliffs, the highest of which is 250 meters. Moyai Hill, overlooking Yunohama and Maehama beaches, contains more than 100 large stone carvings. In the local dialect, ''moyai'' means 'to work together in effort', and these statues make evident this effort. On the western side of JR

Shibuya is a Special wards of Tokyo, special ward in Tokyo, Japan. A major commercial center, Shibuya houses one of the busiest railway stations in the world, Shibuya Station. As of January 1, 2024, Shibuya Ward has an estimated population of 230,60 ...

in Tokyo proper is a giant moyai statue, a gift from the people of Nii-jima. Yunohama Onsen

hot spring A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a Spring (hydrology), spring produced by the emergence of Geothermal activity, geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow ...

, on Yunohama Beach, is a large outdoor bath built in the style of pseudo-Greek ruins that provides stunning panoramic views of the setting sun and the Pacific Ocean. The bath itself accommodates up to 100 bathers. Water used in the bath is drawn from the ocean below. Jūsansha Jinja, is a

Shinto shrine A Stuart D. B. Picken, 1994. p. xxiii is a structure whose main purpose is to house ("enshrine") one or more kami, , the deities of the Shinto religion. The Also called the . is where a shrine's patron is or are enshrined.Iwanami Japanese dic ...

at the base of the cliffs of Mount Miyatsuka in the north-western corner of the main village on the island. This shrine, built in the

, is recognized as caretakers of intangible cultural assets by the Tokyo government for the kagura music and sacred dancing, known as ''shishi-kiyari'' that are held every December 8. Nearby Jūsansha is Chōei-ji, Chōei Temple, a temple dedicated to

Nichiren Buddhism Nichiren Buddhism (), also known as ''Hokkeshū'' (, meaning ''Lotus Sect''), is a branch of Mahayana Buddhism based on the teachings of the 13th-century Japanese Buddhist priest Nichiren (1222–1282) and is one of the Kamakura period school ...

. Beside the temple lies the Exiles' Cemetery. The cemetery, covered with the local white sand, is dominated by the gravestones of the 118 exiles, banished to Niijima by the

Tokugawa Shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

during the Edo era for non-political crimes. A short walk from Chōei Temple is the Exile Execution Ground. Eleven exiles who committed crimes on the island were executed here. Komori Yasu, from the

kabuki is a classical form of Theatre of Japan, Japanese theatre, mixing dramatic performance with Japanese traditional dance, traditional dance. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily stylised performances, its glamorous, highly decorated costumes ...

story 'Yowa Nasake Ukinano Yokoguchi' is buried here. Niijima Glass Art Center is a world-renowned site which hosts the Niijima International Glass Art Festival every autumn. At the center, visitors are able to create their own glass work to take home. Next to the museum is the Niijima Glass Art Museum which houses works from guest artists at the festival. Niijima-mura Museum, houses artifacts from the island's pre-history up to its modern-day surfing culture. Included is a replica fishing vessel and house from the Edo period. Details of the criminal exiles are given. A collaborative effort between the education board and the English department at Niijima High School ensured that the museum is completely bilingual: Japanese-English.

Events

Niijima hosts the Tokyo Islands Triathlon in Niijima (1.5 km swim, 35 km bicycle ride, and a 10 km run) every May and the Niijima Open Water Swimming (1.5, 3, and 4.5 km open water swims). In the summer months, a number of surfing competitions take place at Habushi Beach. Sport fishing and scuba diving are also popular with both residents and tourists. Every autumn, the Niijima International Glass Art Festival takes place. The festival has taken place since 1988. The festival draws leading glass artists who lead workshops and demonstrations in glass art. Artists who have participated in the festival in the past include:

Dale Chihuly Dale Chihuly ( ; born September 20, 1941) is an American glass artist and entrepreneur. He is well known in the field of Glassblowing, blown glass, "moving it into the realm of large-scale sculpture". Early life Dale Patrick Chihuly was born on ...

, William Morris, and Lucio Bubaco. Work by the above artists, and many more, are on display in the museum.

Other attractions

Other attractions on Nii-jima include: ''Ebine'' ('' Calanthe discolor''), a pinkish-purplish

orchid Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Orchids are cosmopolitan plants that are found in almost every habitat on Eart ...

, can be found throughout the island, especially in Ebine Park, which opens from early spring. Souvenirs from Niijima include the island specialty '' kusaya'' - a dried fish, usually mackerel scad (''Decapterus macarellus''), that has been soaked in a special brine. ''Kusaya'', which means ''smells bad'' in Japanese, has an odor that is indeed 'quite' distinct. The village museum has a video on the making of ''kusaya''. If you can get past the smell, you will be rewarded with a rich, delicious meal. Other souvenirs are milk '' senbei,'' the '' ashitaba'' plant, Niijima glass art, and a local Shōchū called ''Shima Jiman'', island pride.

Further points of interest

* LORAN-C transmitter Niijima File:Niijima Habushi Beach.JPG, Habushi Beach File:Niijima Habushi Campg-9D9A9.JPG, Habushi Campground in early morning File:Niijima Jyusansha Shrine.JPG, Jūsansha Shrine File:Yunohama Onsen.jpg, Yunohama Onsen File:Jinai-island.jpg, Jinai-tō File:Hayashima(Izu-Islands).jpg, Hanshima File:Nii-jima aerial.jpg, Aerial photo of Nii-jima

Public transport

The only transportation service on the island is by bus, which is free. The bus route name is
ふれあいバス - Fureai Bus
' which is operated by the Ni-jima Municipal government.

List of regions

*1 Chome *2 Chome *3 Chome *4 Chome *5 Chome *6 Chome *Atsuchiyama *Daisanyama *Genkaku *Hatashiro *Higashisoto *Hinokiyama *Ichmaibata *Ilmori *Kawara *Michishita *Mikonohana *Miyatsukayama *Mukaiyama *Namure *Narusawa *Obasho *Ogiyama *Ohara *Omori *Setoyama *Shinbara *Shirasawa *Sobri *Sotobasho * Wakago *Yamatsuyamakawa

References

External links

Niijima Village Official Website

- Japan Meteorological Agency * - Japan Meteorological Agency

- Geological Survey of Japan * {{Authority control Active volcanoes Islands of Tokyo Izu Islands Important Bird Areas of the Nanpo Islands Seabird colonies