Island Life

Japan is made up of four main islands - Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu, along with many smaller islands. Since the last island survey in 1987, Japan was thought to be made up of 6,852 islands. That survey was done by the Coast Guard with paper maps.  A land mass with a circumference of at least 100 meters is considered an island for this survey.  

An MP from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party called for a recount, telling parliament in 2021 that "an accurate understanding of the number of islands... was in the national interest." Using digital mapping technology, geographers from the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan will soon announce that Japan's island count is actually 14,125! Although the country's island count more than doubles, the size of Japan's territory or territorial waters is not changing. The northern prefecture of Hokkaido has 1,472 islands, while Nagasaki prefecture in the southwest has 1,479.