Eastern Islands of Liuqiu The first mention of the islands in Chinese literature occur in the
Records of the Grand Historian.
Qin Shi Huang heard of "happy immortals" living on the Eastern Islands, so he sent expeditions there to find the
source of immortality, to no avail. Based on Ryukyuan folklore on
Kudaka Island, some scholars believe that these expeditions succeeded in reaching Japan and launched a social and agricultural revolution there. The Eastern Islands are again mentioned as the land of immortals in the Annals of the
Han dynasty. In 601, the Chinese sent an expedition to the "Country of Liuqiu" (). They noted that the people were small but pugnacious. The Chinese could not understand the local language and returned to China. In 607, they sent another expedition to trade and brought back one of the islanders. A Japanese embassy was in
Luoyang when the expedition returned, and one of the Japanese exclaimed that the islander wore the dress and spoke the language of
Yaku Island.
Ancient Japan's Southern Islands The island chain appeared in Japanese written history as . The first record of the Southern Islands is an article of 618 in the
Nihonshoki (720) which states that people of followed the Chinese emperor's virtue. In 629, the imperial court dispatched an expedition to
Yaku.
Yaku in historical sources was not limited to modern-day Yakushima but seems to have covered a broader area of the island chain. In 657, several persons from arrived at Kyushu, reporting that they had first drifted to , which is the first attested use of
Amami. Articles of the late 7th century give a closer look at the southern islands. In 677, the imperial court gave a banquet to people from . In 679, the imperial court sent a mission to Tane Island. The mission carried some people from the southern islands who were described as the peoples of Tane, Yaku, and in the article of 682. According to the
Shoku Nihongi (797), the imperial court dispatched armed officers in 698 to explore the southern islands. As a result, people of Tane, Yaku, Amami and
Dokan visited the capital (then
Fujiwara-kyō) to pay tribute in the next year. Historians identify
Dokan as
Tokunoshima of the Amami Islands. An article of 714 reports that an investigative team returned to the capital, together with people of Amami, , and among others.
Shigaki should be
Ishigaki Island of the Yaeyama Islands. Some identify
Kumi as
Iriomote Island of the Yaeyama Islands because Komi is an older name for Iriomote. Others consider that
Kumi corresponded to
Kume Island of the Okinawa Islands. Around this time "Southern Islands" replaced Yaku as a collective name for the southern islands. Ancient Japan's commitment to the southern islands is attributed to ideological and strategic factors. Japan applied to herself the Chinese ideology of emperorship that required "barbarian people" who longed for the great virtue of the emperor. Thus Japan treated people on its periphery, i.e., the
Emishi to the east and the
Hayato and the Southern Islanders to the south, as "barbarians". The imperial court brought some of them to the capital to serve the emperor. The
New Book of Tang (1060) states at the end of the chapter of Japan that there were three little princes of , , and . This statement should have been based on a report by Japanese envoys in the early 8th century who would have claimed the Japanese emperor's virtue. At the site of
Dazaifu, the administrative center of Kyushu, two wooden tags dated in the early 8th century were unearthed in 1984, which read and respectively. The latter seems to correspond to
Okinoerabu Island. These tags might have been attached to "red woods", which, according to the
Engishiki (927), Dazaifu was to offer when they were obtained from the southern islands. The series of reports suggest that there were groups of people with advanced sailing technology in Amami and that Dazaifu had a stronghold on
Kikai Island. In fact, historians hypothesize that the Amami Islands were incorporated into a trade network that connected it to Kyūshū, Song China and Goryeo. In fact, the
Shōyūki recorded that in the 1020s, local governors of southern Kyūshū presented to the author, a court aristocrat, local specialties of the southern islands including the
Chinese fan palm, redwoods, and shells of
Green Turban Shell. The
Shinsarugakuki, a fictional work written in the mid-11th century, introduced a merchant named Hachirō-mauto, who traveled all the way to the land of the Fushū in the east and to in the west. The goods he obtained from the southern islands included shells of Green Turban Shell and
sulfur. The
Shinsarugakuki was not mere fiction; the Golden Hall of
Chūson-ji (c. 1124) in northeastern Japan was decorated with tens of thousands of green turban shells. The literature-based theory that Kikai Island was Japan's trade center of the southern islands is supported by the discovery of the Gusuku Site Complex in 2006. The group of archaeological sites on the plateau of Kikai Island is one of the largest sites of the era. It lasted from 9th to 13th centuries and at its height from the second half of the 11th to the first half of the 12th century. It was characterized by a near-total absence of the native Kaneku Type pottery, which prevailed in coastal communities. What were found instead were goods imported from mainland Japan, China and Korea. Also found was the
Kamuiyaki pottery, which was produced in
Tokunoshima from the 11th to 14th centuries. The skewed distribution of Kamuiyaki peaked at Kikai and Tokunoshima suggests that the purpose of Kamuiyaki production was to serve it to Kikai.
Shimazu Estate and Kamakura shogunate's expansion Around the
Hōen era (1135–1141), Tanegashima became part of Shimazu Estate on southern Kyūshū. The Shimazu Estate was said to have established at Shimazu,
Hyūga Province in 1020s and dedicated to
Kanpaku Fujiwara no Yorimichi. In the 12th century, Shimazu Estate expanded to a large portion of the
Satsuma and
Ōsumi Provinces including Tanegashima.
Tanegashima under the Tanegashima clan The
Tanegashima clan came to rule Tanegashima on behalf of the Nagoe family but soon became autonomous. It usually allied with, sometimes submitted itself to, and sometimes antagonized the Shimazu clan on mainland Kyūshū. The Tanegashima clan was given Yakushima and
Kuchinoerabu Island by Shimazu Motohisa in 1415. In 1436, it was given the Seven Islands of Kawanabe District, Satsuma Province (the Tokara Islands) and other two islands by Shimazu Mochihisa, the head of a branch family.
matchlock Tanegashima is known in Japanese history for the introduction of European firearms to Japan. Around 1543, a Chinese junk with Portuguese merchants on board was driven to Tanegashima. Tanegashima Tokitaka succeeded in reproducing matchlock rifles obtained from the Portuguese. Within a few decades, firearms, then known as
tanegashima, were spread across
Sengoku Japan.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi's reunification of Japan finalized the Tanegashima clan's status as a senior vassal of the Shimazu clan. It was relocated to
Chiran of mainland Kyūshū in 1595. Although it moved back to Tanegashima in 1599, Yakushima and Kuchinoerabu Island fall under the direct control of the Shimazu clan. These islands all constituted
Satsuma Domain during the
Edo period.
Amami and Tokara Islands The Amami Islands were a focal point for dispute between the southward-expanding Satsuma Domain and the northward-expanding Ryukyu Kingdom. In 1453, a group of Koreans were shipwrecked on
Gaja Island, where they found the island half under the control of Satsuma and half under the control of Ryukyu. Gaja Island is only 80 miles from Satsuma's capital at
Kagoshima City. It was noted by the Koreans that the Ryukyuans used guns "as advanced as in [Korea]". Other records of activity in the Amami Islands show
Shō Toku's conquest of Kikai Island in 1466, a failed Satsuma invasion of Amami Ōshima in 1493, and two rebellions on Amami Ōshima during the 16th century. The islands were finally conquered by Satsuma during the 1609
Invasion of Ryukyu. The Tokugawa shogunate granted Satsuma the islands in 1624. During the Edo Period, Ryukyuans referred to Satsuma's ships as "Tokara ships".
Okinawa Islands Various polities of the Okinawa Islands were unified as the
Ryūkyū Kingdom in 1429, a tributary state of
Ming Imperial China. The kingdom conquered the Miyako and Yaeyama Islands. At its peak, it also subjected the Amami Islands to its rule. In 1609,
Shimazu Tadatsune, Lord of Satsuma, invaded the Ryūkyū Kingdom with a fleet of 13
junks and 2,500
samurai, thereby establishing
suzerainty over the islands. They faced little opposition from the Ryukyuans, who lacked any significant military capabilities, and who were ordered by King
Shō Nei to surrender rather than to suffer the loss of precious lives. After that, the kings of the Ryukyus paid tribute to the Japanese
shōgun as well as to the
Chinese emperor. During this period, Ryukyu kings were selected by a Japanese clan, unbeknownst to the Chinese, who believed the Ryukyus to be a loyal tributary. In 1655, the tributary relations between Ryukyu and Qing were formally approved by the shogunate. In 1874, the Ryukyus terminated tribute relations with China. In 1872, the Japanese government established the Ryukyu
han under the jurisdiction of the Foreign Ministry. In 1875, jurisdiction over the Ryukyus changed from the Foreign Ministry to the Home Ministry. As the
territorial dispute between China and Japan over the Senkaku Islands intensified in the early 21st century,
Chinese Communist Party-backed scholars published essays calling for a reexamination of Japan's sovereignty over the Ryukyus. In 2013,
The New York Times described the comments by said scholars as well as military figures as appearing to constitute "a semiofficial campaign in China to question Japanese rule of the islands", noting that "almost all the voices in China pressing the Okinawa issue are affiliated in some way with the government". Taiwan also claims the Senkaku islands but made it clear on multiple occasions that they will not work with China over the Senkaku Islands dispute. Many
popular singers and musical groups come from Okinawa Prefecture. These include the groups
Speed and
Orange Range, as well as solo singers
Namie Amuro and
Gackt, among many others.
Historical description of the "Loo-Choo" islands '' (1761), which depicts foreign delegations in
Beijing The islands were described by
Hayashi Shihei in
Sangoku Tsūran Zusetsu, which was published in 1785. An article in the 1878 edition of the
Globe Encyclopaedia of Universal Information describes the islands: :
Loo-Choo, Lu-Tchu, or
Lieu-Kieu, a group of thirty-six islands stretching from Japan to Formosa, in 26°–27°40′ N. lat., 126°10′–129°5′ E. long., and tributary to Japan. The largest, Tsju San ('middle island'), is about 60 miles long and 12 [miles] broad; others are Sannan in the [south] and Sanbok in the [north]. Nawa, the chief port of Tsju San, is open to foreign commerce. The islands enjoy a magnificent climate and are highly cultivated and very productive. Among the productions are tea, rice, sugar, tobacco, camphor, fruits, and silk. The principal manufactures are cotton, paper, porcelain, and lacquered ware. The people, who are small, seem a link between the Chinese and Japanese. ==Population==