is one of the

Yaeyama Islands The Yaeyama Islands (八重山列島 ''Yaeyama-rettō'', also 八重山諸島 ''Yaeyama-shotō'', Yaeyama: ''Yaima'', Yonaguni: ''Daama'', Okinawan: ''Yeema'', Northern Ryukyuan: ''Yapema'') are an archipelago in the southwest of Okinawa ...

, within the Sakishima Islands, at the southern end of the

Ryukyu Islands The , also known as the or the , are a chain of Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Taiwan: the Ōsumi, Tokara, Amami, Okinawa, and Sakishima Islands (further divided into the Miyako and Yaeyama Islands), with Yonaguni ...

. It is to the west of Iriomote Island, its nearest large neighbour. It is administered as part of the town of

Taketomi is an island in the town of Taketomi, within Yaeyama District of Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. Taketomi is one of the Yaeyama Islands. The population of Taketomi Island was 323 as of January 2012. Geography Taketomi Island is located south of Is ...

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 ...

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 ...

. The small island (about 1 km; 1000 yards in diameter), whose name means ''outer distant island'', is vegetated, but has no running water. Sotobanari had one human inhabitant, an eighty-two-year-old man named Masafumi Nagasaki, who had lived there in semi-isolation for three decades (1989 - 2018), nude, and bought food and water from a settlement an hour away by boat weekly with ¥10,000 sent by family. He was featured on the Vice News segment "Japan's Naked Island Hermit". In April 2018, the police forced Nagasaki to leave the island, as he became weak with age and had contracted an illness (suspected influenza). The Japanese government provided him with a bedroom and a small allowance. In 2022, Japanese authorities allowed Nagasaki travel to the island again, but he returned back to civilisation after visiting for only a few days with a documentary filmmaker, as he was too weak to sustain a life on the island.

References

Yaeyama Islands Sakishima Islands Islands of Okinawa Prefecture {{Okinawa-geo-stub

See also

References