is a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

located in Kitamatsuura District,

Nagasaki Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Nagasaki Prefecture has a population of 1,314,078 (1 June 2020) and has a geographic area of 4,130 Square kilometre, km2 (1,594 sq mi). Nagasaki Prefecture borders ...

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 covers the island of the same name Ojika, located north of

Gotō Islands The are Japanese islands in the East China Sea, off the western coast of Kyūshū. They are part of Nagasaki Prefecture. Geography There are 140 islands, including five main ones: , , , , and . The group of islands runs approximately fr ...

. As of the 2020 census, the town has an estimated

population Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...

of 2,288 and a

density Density (volumetric mass density or specific mass) is the substance's mass per unit of volume. The symbol most often used for density is ''ρ'' (the lower case Greek letter rho), although the Latin letter ''D'' can also be used. Mathematical ...

of 90 persons per km². The total area is 25.46 km². The islands of Ojika are part of

Saikai National Park is a marine national park located in Nagasaki prefecture of northwest Kyūshū, Japan. It consists of the coastal regions of Matsuura Peninsula, extending northward from the port city of Sasebo and encompasses the Kujūku Islands, with over ...

History

The town of Ojika is made up of 17 large and small islands, six of which are populated: Ojika, Madara, Kuroshima, Noshima, Mushima, and Ōshima. Over 20 volcanoes can be found in the sea surrounding the island. The area has been called the "Eastern Galapagos Island." The main island is approximately 34 km in circumference, with all islands totaling 97 km in circumference. The islands are found within the boundaries of Saikai National Park, preserving the region's natural heritage. Stone tools dated from 10,000 B.C. have been discovered on the islands, along with other relics. The first mention of Ojika was in Nihon Shoki in the 8th century. Although Ojika Island is one of the smallest islands in the Gotō Islands, it was characterized as the entrance to 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 ...

. Around the year 1600,

whaling Whaling is the process of hunting of whales for their usable products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that became increasingly important in the Industrial Revolution. It was practiced as an organized industry ...

became a major industry, with certain families such as the Oda family profiting from the trade. The Oda Whaling Guild, based in Ojika, established a whaling base on

Hirado Island (also previously named Hiranoshima and Firando Island) is the 4th largest island in Nagasaki Prefecture. Its coasts are washed by Sea of Japan. The entire island and the part of the nearby Kyushu mainland is administered as part of Hirado, Nagas ...

in 1692 and operated until 1859. The present day Ojika History Museum was the former home of the Oda family. 71% of trade ceramics on the Gotō Islands were found at sites throughout the islands of Ojika, with another 22% found from the neighboring

Ukushima Ukujima (, also called Uku Island) is an island in the northernmost part of the Gotō archipelago, about 50 km west of the mainland of Kyushu, Japan. It is administratively part of Sasebo City, Nagasaki Prefecture. The entire island lies wit ...

. In 2001, archeological survey was carried out by the Ojika City Board of Education in conjunction with the Kyushu and Okinawa Society for Underwater Archeology at the underwater site of Yamami, situated on a small reef 100 meters from the eastern shore of Ojika in the Karamizaki ward. A number of shards of Thai stoneware, as well as Chinese

blue and white pottery "Blue and white pottery" () covers a wide range of white pottery and porcelain decorated under the glaze with a blue pigment, generally cobalt oxide. The decoration is commonly applied by hand, originally by brush painting, but nowadays by stenc ...

, likely from

Jingdezhen Jingdezhen is a prefecture-level city, in northeastern Jiangxi province, with a total population of 1,669,057 (2018), bordering Anhui to the north. It is known as the "Porcelain Capital" because it has been producing Chinese ceramics for at leas ...

, dating to the 16th and 17th centuries were found. Many of the ceramics can now be found at the Ojika History Museum. It is likely that many

wokou ''Wokou'' (; Japanese: ''Wakō''; Korean: 왜구 ''Waegu''), which literally translates to "Japanese pirates" or "dwarf pirates", were pirates who raided the coastlines of China and Korea from the 13th century to the 16th century.Hidden Christians who fled mainland Japan after the ban of Christianity by the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

in the 16th century. Following the repeal of the ban in 1873, a small church, the Nokubi Christian Church, was built on Nozaki. The remains of the villages on Nozaki are now included as the UNESCO World Heritage Site

Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region ( ja, 長崎と天草地方の潜伏キリシタン関連遺産) is a group of twelve sites in Nagasaki Prefecture and Kumamoto Prefecture relating to the history of Christianity in Japan. The Nagasaki ...

Demographics

The population of Ojika peaked in the 1950s at roughly 11,000. Today the population of the island is rapidly decreasing, and is now around half the number as in the 1970s. The remaining islanders have largely gathered on the main island and abandoned some of the smaller outlying islands, such as Nozaki. Nozaki was abandoned by the six remaining families in 1971 after a pregnant woman died in childbirth with no doctor present due to stormy weather making the island inaccessible. In 2015, 46.4% of the population of Ojika was above 65 years old, compared to the national average of 26.8%, a common trend among other remote islands in Japan. The local government has promoted initiatives for "U-turn", where former residents return to the islands, and "I-turn", where newcomers settle on the islands from more urban areas, such as an agricultural school that guarantees free land use following graduation. Because of the stressed financial situation of the town, the local community discussed whether the town should

merge Merge, merging, or merger may refer to: Concepts * Merge (traffic), the reduction of the number of lanes on a road * Merge (linguistics), a basic syntactic operation in generative syntax in the Minimalist Program * Merger (politics), the comb ...

with

Sasebo is a core city located in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. It is also the second largest city in Nagasaki Prefecture, after its capital, Nagasaki. On 1 June 2019, the city had an estimated population of 247,739 and a population density of 581 persons p ...

, but ultimately decided not to do so and remain as a single town in April 2008. The island hosts the Ojika International Music Festival and Kids Camping Kingdom, as well as various other activities promoting sightseeing. Nozaki Island, though abandoned, has been developed as an eco-camp with a number of hiking trails. Nature programs targeted for elementary and junior high school students began in 2001, using a former school building as accommodation for these groups. Besides tourism, major industries include fishing and farming. A wide variety of Ojika's marine products are famous, such as chicken grunt,

amberjack Amberjacks are Atlantic and Pacific fish in the genus ''Seriola'' of the family Carangidae. They are widely consumed across the world in various cultures, most notably for Pacific amberjacks in Japanese cuisine; they are most often found in the ...

, beltfish, and

abalone Abalone ( or ; via Spanish , from Rumsen ''aulón'') is a common name for any of a group of small to very large marine gastropod molluscs in the family (biology), family Haliotidae. Other common name In biology, a common name of a taxon o ...

. The Ojika islands are one of the most important abalone fishing areas in Nagasaki Prefecture, with a tradition of abalone fishing dating back over 300 years.

Major sights

Akahama coast

Ojika islands are made up of volcanic rocks, thus much of the coast consists of red sands.

Chinokoujima Shrine

Chinokoujima Shrine (地ノ神嶋神社) consists of a rare

torii A is a traditional Japanese gate most commonly found at the entrance of or within a Shinto shrine, where it symbolically marks the transition from the mundane to the sacred. The presence of a ''torii'' at the entrance is usually the simplest ...

which is composed of three parts. Maegata Bay is adjacent to the shrine - a twin shrine, Okinokoujima, is directly opposite of Chinokoujima on Nozaki Island.

Hime no Matsubara

A 450 meter long avenue of pine trees, this avenue has been selected as the best of 100 pine tree locations in Japan, and the best of 8 sights in the Hokusho region.

Kominka

In 2007, the Ojika municipal government began a program of converting century-old private houses known as kominka (古民家) into lodging. All the homes were donated by the houses' original owners, which were then renovated and restored. Six houses, one restaurant, and one guesthouse have so far been converted.

Ecology

The native forests of Ojika were cut down in order to create space for rice paddies and cattle farming. The remaining forest has been largely colonized by invasive species brought to the island as a result of trade with Japan and China over the centuries. The main island of Ojika is surrounded by a shallow underwater plateau with an extensive rocky seabed around the islands. This contributes to breeding and fishing grounds for abalone, which are caught once or twice per year using a form of breath-hold diving. Abalone are dependent on the presence and quality of macroalgae beds, which has significantly degraded around the Ojika islands, contributing the gradual decline in the annual landed catches of abalone since the late 1980s. Decreases and disappearances of macroalgal beds have affected the two main species of abalone, '' Haliotis discus'' and '' Haliotis gigantea'', differently. ''H. discus'' has been able to mature and the

catch per unit effort In fisheries and conservation biology, the catch per unit effort (CPUE) is an indirect measure of the abundance of a target species. Changes in the catch per unit effort are inferred to signify changes to the target species' true abundance. A decr ...

(CPUE) has remained stable. However almost no ''H. gigantea'' were able to mature due to the loss of macroalgal beds and the population will become locally extinct without intervention for the recovery of the macroalgal beds. The

sea star Starfish or sea stars are Star polygon, star-shaped echinoderms belonging to the class (biology), class Asteroidea (). Common usage frequently finds these names being also applied to brittle star, ophiuroids, which are correctly referred to ...

'' Ophidaster multispinus'', previously found only in the Hainan Strait of southern China, was first identified in Japan in the Ojika islands.

Transportation

Ojika can be reached by two ferry lines, one from

Fukuoka is the sixth-largest city in Japan, the second-largest port city after Yokohama, and the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. The city is built along the shores of Hakata Bay, and has been a center of international commerce since ancie ...

which is a five-hour journey, and the other from

, which takes about two hours. Although there is an airport on the island, it does not have regular service. Instead, planes can be chartered to Ojika during the higher parts of the tourist seasons.

References

External links

*
Ojika official website

Ojika and Nozaki Island Tourism website
{{Authority control Towns in Nagasaki Prefecture