The narrative about the number of islands in Japan led to criticism of the less accurate figures. Geographers are expected to add more than 7,000 islands to the count.
Eugene Hoshiko/AP
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Eugene Hoshiko/AP
The narrative about the number of islands in Japan led to criticism of the less accurate figures. Geographers are expected to add more than 7,000 islands to the count.
Eugene Hoshiko/AP
The number of islands in Japan is expected to more than double after 7,000 new islands that were not known to exist were discovered.
Well kind of.
The nation currently includes 6,852 islands, but that figure dates back to a 1987 study by the Coast Guard of Japan. In the December 2021 parliamentary elections, the legislator argued that the data was outdated and the real figures could be very different.
“A precise understanding of the number of islands is an important administrative matter that relates to the state,” the lawmaker said, according to Kyodo News.
During the 1987 study, the island officials were listed by hand with a radius of at least 100 meters. They used basic technologies that often put groups of small islands on a single island.
They also abandoned a thousand islands, many of which were in lakes or rivers. They did not include the river islands, which the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea now recognizes as islands. Plus, volcanic activity has led to the creation of several islands since the study 35 years ago.
Now, as I report, that figure is expected to rise to 14,125 islands, a source familiar with the matter told Kyodo News.
The report is part of a report Japan’s Geospatial Information Authority is expected to release next month.
To tell the story, geographers used mapping technologies to devise and cross-reference them with aerial photographs of the past. Like the original study, they encompassed nothing less than 100 meters in circumference.
The final figure could still change slightly because geographers are still making final adjustments.
Despite the huge growth, the discovery is unlikely to change the size of Japan’s territory or its waters, Kyodo News reported.
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