is a small

volcanic A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often fo ...

deserted Japanese island in the

Philippine Sea The Philippine Sea is a List of seas#Marginal seas by ocean, marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean, Western Pacific Ocean east of the list of islands of the Philippines, Philippine Archipelago (hence the name) and the List of seas#Largest seas ...

approximately south of

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

, and west of

Hachijō-jima is a volcano, volcanic Islands of Japan, Japanese island in the Philippine Sea. It is about south of the special wards of Tokyo. It is part of the Izu Islands, Izu archipelago and within the Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park. Its only municipalit ...

, in the northern Izu archipelago. Administratively, the island is within Hachijō,

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

Geography

Oriented in the same northwest to southeast direction as Hachijō-jima, the 1.3 × 3 km Hachijōkojima is surrounded by high cliffs. The summit of the island is the mountain with a height of . Located in the

Kuroshio Current The , also known as the Black Current or is a north-flowing, warm ocean current on the west side of the North Pacific Ocean basin. It was named for the deep blue appearance of its waters. Similar to the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic, the Ku ...

, the area has abundant sea life, and is popular with sports fishermen and scuba divers.

History

During the

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kammu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means in Japanese. It is a ...

Minamoto no Tametomo , also known as , was a samurai who fought in the Hōgen Rebellion of 1156. He was the son of Minamoto no Tameyoshi, and brother to Yukiie and Yoshitomo. Tametomo is known in the epic chronicles as a powerful archer and it is said that he onc ...

was banished to Izu Ōshima after a failed rebellion, but per a semi-legendary story, escaped to Hachijōjima, where he attempted to establish an independent kingdom, and he built his castle on the more easily defended Hachijōkojima. Although the legend has not been verified with historical or archaeological evidence, Hachijōkojima has been inhabited since at least the

Muromachi period The , also known as the , is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate ( or ), which was officially established in 1338 by the first Muromachi ...

. As with neighboring Hachijōjima, during the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

, the island was a place for exile of convicts. As the strait separating Hachijōkojima from Hachijōjima has a strong current preventing escape by raft or swimming, the more serious criminals were isolated on the island. Its use as a prison came to an end in the

Meiji period The was an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonizatio ...

. During this time, there were two hamlets on the island: in the northeast, and in the southwest. These hamlets became part of the town of Hachijō in 1955. The population peaked at 513 residents in the Meiji period, but by 1955 the population had shrunk to only 50. In 1965, the remaining residents voted to abandon the island, citing lack of basic public services (including electricity, healthcare and schools) and the island's inability to support more than a very basic subsistence lifestyle. There have been no residents of Hachijōkojima since 1969, when the last group of 31 left the island.

References

* ''Teikoku's Complete Atlas of Japan'', Teikoku-Shoin Co., Ltd. Tokyo 1990,

External links

* Izu Islands Uninhabited islands of Japan Former populated places in Japan Extinct volcanoes of Asia Islands of Tokyo {{Tokyo-geo-stub

Geography

History

See also

References

External links