Cape Manzamo (万座毛, ''Manzamou'' lit. "a field for 10,000 people to sit" ) is a scenic rock formation on

Okinawa Island is the largest of the Okinawa Islands and the Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Islands of Japan in the Kyushu region. It is the smallest and least populated of the five main islands of Japan. The island is approximately long, an average wide, and has an ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. It is located near Onna Village (恩納村 Onna-son, Okinawan: Unna) in the Kunigami District of

Okinawa Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 km2 (880 sq mi). Naha is the capital and largest city o ...

. Cape Manzamo is one of the most popular places among both

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

and international travelers who visit Okinawa Island.

Location

Cape Manzamo is located on the western side of Okinawa Island (), facing the

East China Sea The East China Sea is an arm of the Western Pacific Ocean, located directly offshore from East China. It covers an area of roughly . The sea’s northern extension between mainland China and the Korean Peninsula is the Yellow Sea, separated b ...

. It is accessed most easily from Onna Village, which is served by public transportation buses travelling between

Naha is the capital city of Okinawa Prefecture, the southernmost prefecture of Japan. As of 1 June 2019, the city has an estimated population of 317,405 and a population density of 7,939 persons per km2 (20,562 persons per sq. mi.). The total area i ...

and

Nago ''Nagu'', Kunigami: ''Naguu'' is a city located in the northern part of Okinawa Island, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. As of December 2012, the city has an estimated population of 61,659 and a population density of 288 persons per km2. Its total ...

Origin of the name

When visiting Cape Manzamo, 18th Century Ryukyuan king

Sho Kei Sho, Shō or SHO may refer to: Music * ''Shō'' (instrument) (笙), a Japanese wind instrument * ''Kane'' (instrument) (鉦), a Japanese percussion instrument * Sho?, a Dubai rock band People * Shō (given name), including ''Sho'' * Shō (s ...

is said to have noted that the top of the cliff was big enough for 10,000 people to sit. The

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

characters of the

written form of Manzamo reflect the king's expression: 万 (Man - 10,000) 座 (Za - to sit) 毛 (Mo - field). The third syllable "mo" is pronounced long, therefore Manzamo is sometimes

transliterated Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or ...

as Manzamou (or alternately Manzamō, with the ō denoting the long vowel). Another English translation of the name is Cape Manza.

Popularity

Due to its location, Cape Manzamo is facing the open East China Sea to the west. This makes it a very popular spot on Okinawa for viewing the sunset, and for taking photos of the cliff from its side facing Onna Village. At low tide, at the bottom of the rock formation which constitutes the picturesque cliff,

tidal pool A tide pool or rock pool is a shallow pool of seawater that forms on the rocky intertidal shore. Many of these pools exist as separate bodies of water only at low tide. Many tide pool habitats are home to especially adaptable animals that ...

s are formed. Directly on the sea-facing side of these pools, there is a popular scuba-diving spot known as The Toilet Bowl.

References

{{Reflist Okinawa Islands