Ishigaki Island
Ishigaki (石垣島, Ishigaki-jima?, Yaeyama and Okinawan: Ishigachi) is a Japanese island west of Okinawa Hontō and the second-largest island of the Yaeyama Island group. It is within the City of Ishigaki in Okinawa Prefecture. The city functions as the business and transport center of the archipelago. Ishigaki Airport is the largest airport in the Yaeyamas and Japan's largest third-class airport.
Much of the island and surrounding waters including Mount Omoto and Kabira Bay are protected as part of Iriomote-Ishigaki National Park.
Ishigaki Island, like the rest of Okinawa, is culturally influenced by both Japan and Taiwan ‒ as well as China ‒ due to its location off the north eastern coast of Taiwan.
A tsunami of record height hit Ishigaki Island in 1771.
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)