Geography
The island is separated from Honshū by the Akashi Strait and from Shikoku by the Naruto Strait. Since April 5, 1998 it has been connected to Kobe on Honshū by the Akashi-Kaikyō Bridge, the longest suspension bridge in the world. Since its completion the Kobe Awaji Naruto Expressway across the island has been the main eastern land link between Honshū and Shikoku. The Naruto whirlpools form in the strait between Naruto, Tokushima and Awaji.
The Nojima Fault, responsible for the 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake, cuts across the island. A section of the fault was protected and turned into the Nojima Fault Preservation Museum in the Hokudancho Earthquake Memorial Park (北淡町震災記念公園?) to show how the movement in the ground cut across roads, hedges and other installations. Outside of this protected area the fault zone is less visible. The Onaruto Bridge Memorial Museum (大鳴門橋記念館, Ōnarutokyō Kinenkan?) and the Uzushio Science Museum (うずしお科学館, Uzushio Kagakukan?) are located near Fukura.
Read more about this topic: Awaji Island
Famous quotes containing the word geography:
“Yet America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Where the heart is, there the muses, there the gods sojourn, and not in any geography of fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut River, and Boston Bay, you think paltry places, and the ear loves names of foreign and classic topography. But here we are; and, if we tarry a little, we may come to learn that here is best. See to it, only, that thyself is here;—and art and nature, hope and fate, friends, angels, and the Supreme Being, shall not absent from the chamber where thou sittest.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Ktaadn, near which we were to pass the next day, is said to mean “Highest Land.” So much geography is there in their names.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)