Geography of the Bonin Islands
Overview of the Geography of the Bonin Islands / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Bonin Islands (Ogasawara Islands (小笠原群島, Ogasawara Guntō)[1]) are an archipelago of over 30 subtropical and tropical islands, some 1,000 kilometres (540 nmi; 620 mi) directly south of Tokyo, Japan and 1,000 miles (870 nmi; 1,600 km) northwest of Guam.[2][3]
Ogasawara Municipality (mura) and Ogasawara Subprefecture take their names from the Ogasawara Group. Ogasawara Archipelago (小笠原諸島, Ogasawara shotō) is also used as a wider collective term that includes other islands in Ogasawara Municipality, such as the Volcano Islands, along with three other remote islands (Nishinoshima, Minami-Tori-shima and Okinotorishima). Geographically speaking, all of these islands are part of the Nanpō Islands.
The islands have a total population of 2,560 (2021): 2,120 on Chichijima and 440 on Hahajima,[4] lives in the Ogasawara Group, which has a total area of 84 square kilometres (32 sq mi).
Because the Ogasawara Islands have never been connected to a continent, many of their animals and plants have undergone unique evolutionary processes. This has led to the islands' nickname of "The Galápagos of the Orient", and their nomination as a natural World Heritage Site on June 24, 2011.[5] The giant squid (genus Architeuthis) was photographed off the Ogasawara Islands for the first time in the wild on 30 September 2004, and was filmed alive there in December 2006.[6]