Danjo-gunto

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Danjo-gunto
Waters East China Sea
Geographical location 32 ° 1 '  N , 128 ° 23'  E Coordinates: 32 ° 1 '  N , 128 ° 23'  E
Danjo-guntō (Nagasaki Prefecture)
Danjo-gunto
Number of islands 5
Main island O-shima
Total land area 4.75 km²
Residents uninhabited

Danjo-guntō ( Japanese 男女 群島 , dt. "Man-woman-archipelago"), more rarely also Danjo-shotō ( 男女 諸島 ), is an island group in the East China Sea off the Japanese main island Kyūshū .

geography

Danjo-guntō is 65 km southwest of the Gotō Islands , 130 km west of the Koshikijima Islands and 170 km west of Kyushu.

Due to its location in the Tsushima Current as the northern branch of the Kuroshio system, the island has mild weather all year round and even in winter the water temperatures do not drop below 17 ° C.

The land area of ​​the archipelago is 4.75 km². The islands are characterized by their steep terrain, where even small islands rise over 100 m. The highest point with 281.3 m is in the north of the southern island Me-shima. Geologically, the islands consist of tufa .

The group consists of five islands and various rocks:

Surname Japanese Area [km²] Height [m] Coordinates
O-shima 男 島 2.1 225, 0 32 ° 2 '45 "  N , 128 ° 23' 53"  E
Kuroki-jima ク ロ キ 島 104, 0 32 ° 1 ′ 58 "  N , 128 ° 22 ′ 45"  E
Yori-shima 寄 島 183, 0 32 ° 1 ′ 38 "  N , 128 ° 22 ′ 18"  E
Hanaguri-shima ハ ナ グ リ 島 144, 0 32 ° 0 ′ 43 "  N , 128 ° 21 ′ 45"  E
Me-shima 女 島 1.5 281.3 31 ° 59 ′ 57 ″  N , 128 ° 21 ′ 0 ″  E
f1Georeferencing Map with all coordinates: OSM | WikiMap

Administratively, the islands belong to the municipality of Gotō .

history

In the oldest chronicle of Japan, the Kojiki from 712, the description of the creation myth of the Japanese islands mentions the double island Futago no shima ( 両 児 島 , "twin island "). Some of these are identified with Danjo-guntō or its two main islands, which would then be the oldest mention of the islands.

Since the late 8th century, the archipelago served as a landmark for the Japanese embassies to Tang China . In the Middle Ages they were taken over by Minamoto no Sadashige ( 源 定 茂 ) and served as a stopover for trade with the Asian continent. At the time of the Japanese pirates ( Wakō ) they used them as a hiding place for smuggled and looted goods.

The Europeans, especially the Dutch after the closure of Japan , also served the islands as a point of reference for heading for Japan or the VOC branch Dejima . At that time it was called Meaxima or Meaxuma , after the island of Me-shima, in Portuguese spelling .

The islands were a filming location in Keisuke Kinoshita's 1957 movie Yorokobi mo Kanashimi mo Ikutoshitsuki .

On December 1, 1927, a lighthouse was first built on the southern island of Me-shima. It was the last manned lighthouse in Japan until December 2006 and has been operating fully automatically ever since. In the current version, it uses a 200,000 candela strong beacon that flashes every 15 seconds and has  a range of up to 21  nautical miles .

Flora and fauna

The archipelago is covered by primeval forest, consisting mainly of the tree species Machilus thunbergii , Cinnamomum tenuifolium and Turpinia ternata , as well as the species Asplenium antiquum , Alocasia odora , Alpinia intermedia and Colysis pothifolia on the ground . The coastal areas form the northern limit of the range of Cinnamomum daphnoides .

The warm Tsushima current, which meets the coast, makes for fish-rich waters. This and their lonely location in the far sea in turn ensure a high number of birds. So 179 different bird species have been recorded at least, being a breeding site of White Face shearwaters , ospreys , black-tailed gull , Japanese Murrelet , Japan White-eye and Erithacus Komadori is used. Important birds that do not breed here are the white-bellied booby and the Kuroda thrush .

Otherwise the fauna is characterized by invertebrates. The islands form the only distribution area of ​​the adder species Amphiesma sauteri in Japan. Therefore, the archipelago was declared a national natural monument ( 国 指定 天然 記念 物 , kunishitei tennen kinenbutsu ) on August 18, 1969 and a national game reserve ( 国 指定 鳥 獣 保護 区 , kunishitei chōjū hogoku ) on November 1, 1972 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 図 表層 地盤 の ゆ れ や す さ （長崎 県） ("Map: Earthquake Hazard of the Top Soil Layer (Nagasaki Prefecture)"). (PDF; 118 kB) 内閣 府 政策 統 括 官 （防災 担当） (“ Cabinet Office (Disaster Control )”), archived from the original on April 20, 2012 ; Retrieved August 3, 2016 (Japanese).
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g 海 の な ぜ？ な に？ / 国 指定 天然 記念 物 男女 群島 ("Why and why? Nationally designated natural monuments: Danjo-guntō"). In: .よかとこ,五島 . 大浜海業振興会·奥浦漁業集落·五島ふくえ漁協 ( "Society for the Promotion of the marine industry Ohama, fisheries branch Okuura, fishing cooperative Gotō-Fukue"), March 17, 2007 accessed on 9. January 2013 (Japanese).
  3. ↑ a b c 男女 群島 . In: 長崎 県 の 文化 財 ("Cultural Monuments of Nagasaki Prefecture"). Nagasaki Prefecture, accessed August 3, 2016 (Japanese).
  4. ↑ 男女 群島 . In: 世界 大 百科 事 典 第 ２ 版 at kotobank.jp. Retrieved January 9, 2013 (Japanese).
  5. ↑ a b Shin'ichi Seki: 男女 群島 の 鳥類 / Avifauna of the Danjo Islands, located in the north-eastern part of the East China Sea . In: 森林 総 合 研究所 研究 報告 / Bulletin of FFPRI . Vol. 9, No. 4 , December 2010, p. 193-205 ( PDF ).
  6. ↑ Donald L. Philippi: Kojiki . University of Tokyo Press, Tokyo 1968, pp. 575 .
  7. ^ Wolfgang Michel : Travels of the Dutch East India Company in the Japanese archipelago . In: Lutz Walter (Ed.): Japan. Seen through the eyes of the west . Prestel, Munich 1993, p. 32 ( Wolfgang Michel , Kyushu University (PDF) ).
  8. ↑ 女 島 灯台 の 歴 史 ("History of the Meshima Lighthouse"). In: よ う こ そ 女 島 灯台 へ . Japanese Coast Guard , accessed January 12, 2013 (Japanese).
  9. ↑ 女 島 灯台 無人 化 へ (“Automation of the Meshima lighthouse”). In: よ う こ そ 女 島 灯台 へ . Japanese Coast Guard , accessed January 12, 2013 (Japanese).
  10. ↑ よ う こ そ 女 島 灯台 へ (“Welcome to the Meshima lighthouse”). In: よ う こ そ 女 島 灯台 へ . Japanese Coast Guard , accessed January 12, 2013 (Japanese).
  11. ↑ 国 指定 鳥 獣 保護 区 一 覧 . (PDF; 74 kB) Ministry of the Environment , November 1, 2012, accessed on July 13, 2013 (Japanese).