, also spelled as Kita Daitō, Kita-Daitō-shima, and Kitadaitō, is the northernmost island in the

Daitō Islands The are an archipelago consisting of three isolated coral islands in the Philippine Sea southeast of Okinawa. The islands have a total area of and a population of 2,107. Administratively, the whole group belongs to Shimajiri District of Okinawa ...

group, located in the

Philippine Sea The Philippine Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean east of the Philippine archipelago (hence the name), the largest in the world, occupying an estimated surface area of . The Philippine Sea Plate forms the floor of the sea. Its ...

southeast of

Okinawa 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 ...

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 administered as part of the village of Kitadaitō,

Shimajiri District is a district located in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. Modern translation of Shimajiri means "Butt of the island" which may refer to its southerly position on the island of Okinawa. Compare this to Kunigami District, Okinawa. However, there are ...

. The island is entirely cultivated for agriculture, although it lacks freshwater sources. The island has no beaches but has a fishing harbor, three ferry docks and an airport ( Kitadaito Airport) (airport code "KTD") for local flights.

Geography

Kitadaitōjima is a relatively isolated coralline island, located approximately north of

Minamidaitōjima , also spelt as Minami Daitō or Minami-Daitō, is the largest island in the Daitō Islands group southeast of Okinawa, Japan. It is administered as part of the village of Minamidaitō, Okinawa. Shimajiri District, Okinawa, Shimajiri District, O ...

, the largest island of the archipelago, and from

Naha, Okinawa 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 is ...

. As with the other islands in the archipelago, Kitadaitōjima is an uplifted

coral atoll Corals are marine invertebrates within the class (biology), class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important C ...

with a steep coastal cliff of limestone (the former fringing

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups. Co ...

of the island), and a depressed center (the former lagoon of the island). The island is roughly oval in shape, with a circumference of about , length of and an area of . The highest point is above sea level. The 660 (as of June 1, 2013) inhabitants live in a village in the center of the island.

Gallery

File:Kitadaitou.jpg, A village in the interior of the island. File:Kitadaitou kitakaigan.jpg, A natural area

Climate

Kitadaitōjima has a

tropical rainforest climate A tropical rainforest climate, humid tropical climate or equatorial climate is a tropical climate sub-type usually found within 10 to 15 degrees latitude of the equator. There are some other areas at higher latitudes, such as the coast of southea ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

''Af'') with very warm summers and mild winters. The average annual temperature in Kitadaitōjima is . Precipitation is significant throughout the year; the wettest month is May and the driest month is February. The island is subject to frequent

typhoon A typhoon is a mature tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere. This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, and is the most active tropical cyclone basin on Earth, accounting for a ...

s. The average annual rainfall is with September as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around , and lowest in January, at around . Its record high is , reached on 7 September 2017, and its record low is , reached on 15 February 2015.

History

It is uncertain when Minamidaitōjima was discovered. It is the most likely that their first sighting was by the Spanish navigator

Bernardo de la Torre Bernardo de la Torre was a Spanish sailor, primarily noted for having explored parts of the Western Pacific Ocean south of Japan in the 16th century. Bernardo de la Torre sailed under the instructions of Ruy López de Villalobos, who sent him in Au ...

in 1543, in between 25 September and 2 October, during his abortive attempt to reach New Spain from the Philippines with the ''San Juan de Letran''. It was then charted, together with Kitadaitōjima, as ''Las Dos Hermanas'' (The Two Sisters). There is little doubt that Minamidaitōjima and Kitadaitōjima were again sighted by the Spanish on 28 July 1587, by Pedro de Unamuno who named them ''Islas sin Probecho'' (Useless Islands). However, on 2 July 1820, the Russian vessel ''Borodino'' surveyed the two Daitō islands and named the south as "South Borodino Island". The island remained uninhabited until claimed by the

Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...

in 1885. In 1900, a team of pioneers from Hachijōjima, an island located south of Tokyo led by Tamaoki Han'emon (1838 – 1910), who had pioneered settlement on Minamidaitōjima, became the first human inhabitants of the island, and started the cultivation of

sugar cane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fibrous stalks t ...

from 1903. During this period until

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Kitadaitōjima was owned in its entirety by Dai Nippon Sugar (now Dai Nippon Meiji Sugar), which also operated mines for the extraction of

guano Guano (Spanish from qu, wanu) is the accumulated excrement of seabirds or bats. As a manure, guano is a highly effective fertilizer due to the high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, all key nutrients essential for plant growth. G ...

for use in fertilizer. Many of the inhabitants were seasonal workers from Okinawa and

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

. After World War II, the island was occupied by the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The use of increased mechanization increased

phosphate In chemistry, a phosphate is an anion, salt, functional group or ester derived from a phosphoric acid. It most commonly means orthophosphate, a derivative of orthophosphoric acid . The phosphate or orthophosphate ion is derived from phospho ...

yields marginally until the deposits were exhausted by the mid-1950s. The island was returned to Japan in 1972.

References

External links

official home page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kitadaitojima Daitō Islands Islands of Okinawa Prefecture