Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Passengers board an ANA Air Next flight at Ishigaki Airport.
The Ryukyus In Depth
We'll start again in the north and work our way south, this time taking our time to discuss in
more detail each island's general characteristics, any special or unusual features and how to
reach them. As the Ryukyu's axis is generally north-south, the eastern shores of the islands
greet the sun each morning, rising up out of the Pacific Ocean (
太平洋
; Taiheiyō), while their
western shores see the sun set each evening into the East China Sea (
東シナ海
or
東支那海
;
Higashi Shina Kai).
Recall that the Ryukyu Archipelago (
琉球列島
; Ryūkyū-rettō) or Southwest Islands (
南西
諸島
; Nansei-shotō) is a 684-mile (1,100-kilometer)-long north to southwest arc of roughly
150 islands, approximately 75 of which are inhabited, divided in two halves: the Satsunan
group (Satsunan-shotō) and the Ryukyu group (Ryukyu-shotō). Let's get going!
Island Nomenclature
In English, a chain or cluster of islands is properly called an archipelago. It comes to us from
the Greek
arkhi
(
ἄρχι
), meaning “chief,” and
pélagos
(πέλαγος) which means “the sea.” The
term describes a group of islands. In Japanese, there are several words with the meaning of
archipelago. Quite commonly used is
shoto
(
諸島
; shotō), which describes any group of is-
lands. Also widely used is
retto
(
列島
; rettō), which again means a group of islands but has
the added sense of a line or an arc of islands. Finally, a third term,
gunto
(
群島
; guntō), is used
to describe a mixed or round cluster of islands.
As a practical matter, all three terms are used more or less interchangeably and, in fact,
any discrete group or chain of islands may be collectively referred to as a
shoto
,
retto
or
gunto
.
Notice that all three terms incorporate
島
as their second character. This Kanji character
means “island” and is pronounced
jima
,
shima
or
tō
depending on usage and context.
