Iki Island (壱岐島) is an island lying between the island of Kyūshū and the Tsushima islands in the Tsushima Strait, the eastern channel of the Korea Strait. It is currently part of Nagasaki Prefecture of Japan. The city of Iki is the centre of the local government. The island has three ports.
The island’s residents gain their livelihood primarily from the sea. Until the mid-1970s, they were prosperous, owing to their proximity to a highly productive fishing area known as the Shichiriga Banks. Those waters were also on the migration route of vast pods of dolphins — bottlenose, gray and white Risso’s, and black false killer whales.
Read more about Iki Island: Geography, History, Extermination of Dolphins
Famous quotes containing the word island:
“When the inhabitants of some sequestered island first descry the “big canoe” of the European rolling through the blue waters towards their shores, they rush down to the beach in crowds, and with open arms stand ready to embrace the strangers. Fatal embrace! They fold to their bosoms the vipers whose sting is destined to poison all their joys; and the instinctive feeling of love within their breasts is soon converted into the bitterest hate.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)