The nation of Japan, known in Japanese as Nihon or Nippon (日本), occupies an archipelago off the east coast of Asia. The four main islands are Hokkaidō in the north, Honshū (the largest), Shikoku in the south, and Kyūshū in the southwest. The country includes thousands of other islands of all sizes; among them the Ryūkyū (Nansei) Islands are a long chain extending to the southwest and including the large island of Okinawa, and the Nanpō Islands are another long chain extending south into the Pacific Ocean. Much of Japan is mountainous but the coastal regions are densely populated and urbanized; the country's population is about 126 million. The Amami Islands lie to the northeast of Okinawa in the Nansei Islands (Nansei-shotō or "southwest islands" in Japanese), the archipelago extending southwestward from Kyūshū towards Taiwan. Amami Ōshima, the largest island of the group and second largest of the Nansei Islands, is accessible by air, and the other inhabited islands can be reached by ferry from Amami Ōshima. The islands are administered as part of Kagoshima Prefecture, the southernmost prefecture of Kyūshū. The Amami islands became part of the Ryūkyū Kingdom in the mid 15th century but after 1613 they were governed by Japan. Japan formally annexed the Ryūkyū Islands in 1879 over Chinese protests; U.S. President Ulysses Grant, called in as arbitrator, ruled in favor of Japan. At the end of World War II in 1945 the Amami Islands were governed by U.S. authorities until they were returned to Japan in 1953. In Japanese the word for a lighthouse is tōdai or toudai (灯台). The words saki and misaki are for capes and headlands, hana ("nose") is a promontory, hantō is a peninsula, shima (also spelled sima or jima) is an island, bae is a reef, iwa or shi is a rocky reef, amase or se is a shoal, wan is a bay, nada is a sound or basin, kaikyō is a strait, kawa is a river, and kō or minato is a harbor. Lighthouses in Japan are operated and maintained by the Japanese Coast Guard's Maritime Safety Agency. Lighthouses in the Amami islands are maintained by the office at Amami City. ARLHS numbers are from the ARLHS World List of Lights. JCG numbers are the Japanese Coast Guard's light list numbers. Admiralty numbers are from volume M of the Admiralty List of Lights & Fog Signals. U.S. NGA List numbers are from Publication 112.
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Kikai Shima Lighthouses
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Amami Ōshima Lighthouses
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![]() Tachigami Light, Amami City Japanese Coast Guard Amami Office photo (no longer online) |
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Tokuno Shima Lighthouses
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Okinoerabu Shima Lighthouses
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Yoron Shima Lighthouses
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Information available on lost lighthouses:
Notable faux lighthouses:
Adjoining pages: North: Ōsumi Islands | South: Okinawa Islands
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Posted August 27, 2007. Checked and revised July 7, 2024. Lighthouses: 33. Site copyright 2024 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.