Why You Should Consider Visiting Japan After Recent Discovery

Japan Recounts its Island Numbers and Discovers 7,000 More

Digital mapping by the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan recently found there to be 14,125 islands in Japanese territory, more than double the figure of 6,852 that has been in official use since a 1987 report by Japan’s Coast Guard. It said that while there is no international agreement on how to count islands, it used the same size criterion as the previous survey 35 years ago. The new number does not include any artificially reclaimed land. 

If reports are to go by, 35 years ago, when the Japanese Coast Guard counted the islands, the technology used during that time could not distinguish between larger individual islands and small clusters of islands, which means thousands of such islands were counted as one.

Since then, volcanic eruptions further contributed to the formation of new islands, which combined, have nearly doubled the island landmass that Japan was previously thought to possess.

The Geospatial Information Authority stated that this new figure showed the advances in surveying technology in recent years, including the details of the maps used for the count. That entailed counting all naturally occurring land areas with a circumference of at least 100 meters. The islands surrounding Japan have been at the heart of several territorial disputes.

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Japan lays claim to the Russian-held southern Kuril islands, which Tokyo calls the Northern Territories, a dispute that dates to the end of World War II when Soviet troops seized them from Japan. Japan also says it has a historical claim to the uninhabited Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, which it currently administers, but China has repeatedly challenged that claim.

Meanwhile, Japan and South Korea remain locked in a more than 70-year dispute over the sovereignty of a group of islets known as Dokdo by Seoul and Takeshima by Tokyo in the Sea of Japan, which Korea calls the East Sea.

If you have been to Japan, here’s a solid reason why you should consider revisiting and exploring the newly discovered islands.