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Okinawa Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan and has a population of 1,457,162 and a geographic area of 2,281 km2.
The Ryukyuan people are a Japonic-speaking East Asian ethnic group native to the Ryukyu Islands, which stretch between the islands of Kyushu and Taiwan. Administratively, they live in either the Okinawa Prefecture or the Kagoshima Prefecture within Japan. They speak one of the Ryukyuan languages, considered to be one of the two branches of the Japonic language family, the other being Japanese and its dialects. Hachijō is sometimes considered by linguists to constitute a third branch.
The Okinawan language or Central Okinawan is a Northern Ryukyuan language spoken primarily in the southern half of the island of Okinawa, as well as in the surrounding islands of Kerama, Kumejima, Tonaki, Aguni and a number of smaller peripheral islands. Central Okinawan distinguishes itself from the speech of Northern Okinawa, which is classified independently as the Kunigami language. Both languages are listed by UNESCO as endangered.
The Ryukyuan languages, also Lewchewan or Luchuan, are the indigenous languages of the Ryukyu Islands, the southernmost part of the Japanese archipelago. Along with the Japanese language and the Hachijō language, they make up the Japonic language family.
This article is about the history of the Ryukyu Islands southwest of the main islands of Japan.
The Ryukyu Kingdom was a kingdom in the Ryukyu Islands from 1429 to 1879. It was ruled as a tributary state of imperial Ming China by the Ryukyuan monarchy, who unified Okinawa Island to end the Sanzan period, and extended the kingdom to the Amami Islands and Sakishima Islands. The Ryukyu Kingdom played a central role in the maritime trade networks of medieval East Asia and Southeast Asia despite its small size. The Ryukyu Kingdom became a vassal state of the Satsuma Domain of Japan after the invasion of Ryukyu in 1609 but retained de jure independence until it was transformed into the Ryukyu Domain by the Empire of Japan in 1872. The Ryukyu Kingdom was formally annexed and dissolved by Japan in 1879 to form Okinawa Prefecture, and the Ryukyuan monarchy was integrated into the new Japanese nobility.
The Amami Islands is an archipelago in the Satsunan Islands, which is part of the Ryukyu Islands, and is southwest of Kyushu. Administratively, the group belongs to Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. The Geospatial Information Authority of Japan and the Japan Coast Guard agreed on February 15, 2010, to use the name of Amami-guntō (奄美群島) for the Amami Islands. Prior to that, Amami-shotō (奄美諸島) was also used. The name of Amami is probably cognate with Amamikyu (阿摩美久), the goddess of creation in the Ryukyuan creation myth.
The Ryukyu independence movement or the Republic of the Ryukyus is a political movement advocating for the independence of the Ryukyu Islands from Japan.
The Ryukyu Islands, also known as the Nansei Islands or the Ryukyu Arc, are a chain of Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Taiwan: the Ōsumi, Tokara, Amami, Okinawa, and Sakishima Islands, with Yonaguni the westernmost. The larger are mostly volcanic islands and the smaller mostly coral. The largest is Okinawa Island.
Yukatchu, also known as Samuree (サムレー), were the aristocracy of the Ryukyu Kingdom. The scholar-bureaucrats of classical Chinese studies living in Kumemura held the majority of government positions.
Tatsuhiro Ōshiro was an Okinawan novelist and playwright from Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands.
Marquess Shō Tai was the last king of the Ryukyu Kingdom and the head of the Ryukyu Domain. His reign saw greatly increased interactions with travelers from abroad, particularly from Europe and the United States, as well as the eventual end of the kingdom and its annexation by Japan as Ryukyu Domain. In 1879, the deposed king was forced to relocate to Tokyo. In May 1885, in compensation, he was made a Kōshaku, the second tier of nobility within the Kazoku peerage system.
Imperial Chinese missions to the Ryukyu Kingdom were diplomatic missions that were intermittently sent by the Yuan, Ming and Qing emperors to Shuri, Okinawa, in the Ryukyu Islands. These diplomatic contacts were within the Sinocentric system of bilateral and multinational relationships in the Sinosphere.
The Ryukyu Domain was a short-lived domain of the Empire of Japan, lasting from 1872 to 1879, before becoming the current Okinawa Prefecture and other islands at the Pacific edge of the East China Sea.
The Ryukyuan diaspora are the Ryukyuan emigrants from the Ryukyu Islands, especially Okinawa Island, and their descendants that reside in a foreign country. The first recorded emigration of Ryukyuans was in the 15th century when they established an exclave in Fuzhou in Ming Dynasty (China). Later, there was a large wave of emigration to Hawaii at the start of the 20th century, followed by a wave to various Pacific islands in the 1920s and multiple migrations to the Americas throughout the 20th century. Ryukyuans became Japanese citizens when Japan annexed the Ryukyu Kingdom in 1879; therefore Ryukyuan immigrants are often labeled as part of the Japanese diaspora. Regardless, some of the Ryukyuan diaspora view themselves as a distinct group from the Japanese (Yamato).
The flag of Ryukyu is a number of flags that represent the Ryukyu Kingdom, the Ryukyu Islands, and the Ryukyuan people.
The Ryukyu Disposition, also called the Ryukyu Annexation or the annexation of Okinawa, was the political process during the early years of the Meiji period that saw the incorporation of the former Ryukyu Kingdom into the Empire of Japan as Okinawa Prefecture and its decoupling from the Chinese tributary system. These processes began with the creation of Ryukyu Domain in 1872 and culminated in the kingdom's annexation and final dissolution in 1879; immediate diplomatic fallout and consequent negotiations with Qing China, brokered by Ulysses S. Grant, effectively came to an end late the following year. The term is also sometimes used more narrowly in relation to the events and changes of 1879 alone. The Ryūkyū Disposition has been "alternatively characterized as aggression, annexation, national unification, or internal reform".
Ryukyuan culture are the cultural elements of the indigenous Ryukyuan people, an ethnic group native to Okinawa Prefecture and parts of Kagoshima Prefecture in southwestern Japan.
The foreign relations of the Ryukyu Kingdom were shaped through heavy mutual contact and trade with surrounding nations, most notably Japan and China. The influence exerted by both of these nations differ throughout each era of Ryukyuan history. To a lesser extent, other nations played a role in Ryukyuan diplomacy.
The main island of Okinawa accounts for 0.6% of Japan's land mass, though about 75% of United States forces in Japan are stationed in the Okinawa prefecture, encompassing about 18% of the main island of Okinawa. Following the ratification of the revised U.S.-Japan Security Treaty in 1960, massive protests of US military presence in Okinawa followed across Japan with an estimated 30 million Japanese citizens participating, known in Japan as the Anpo protest movement. With such a strong focus of United States Forces Japan in Okinawa, residents face economic problems of the highest unemployment in Japan as well as struggle for investment from outside businesses. Immense public opposition in Okinawa is still met with difficulty to create change for Okinawan citizens, while 25,000 American troops remain in Okinawa.
References
- ↑ Gillan, Matt (2016). "3". Songs from the Edge of Japan: Music-making in Yaeyama and Okinawa. Taylor & Francis.
- ↑ Karan, Pradyumna P. (2010). Japan in the 21st Century Environment, Economy, and Society. University Press of Kentucky.
- ↑ Kaori H. Okano; Ryoko Tsuneyoshi; Sarane Boocock (2010). "4". Minorities and Education in Multicultural Japan. Taylor & Francis.
- ↑ Sterling, Masako Kimura (2013). I Thought the Sun Was God The Spiritual Journey of a Descendant of the Last Satsuma Samurai Clan. FriesenPress. p. 17.
- ↑ Maher, John C. (2017). Multilingualism: A Very Short Introduction. OUP Oxford.
- ↑ Nakasone, Ronald Y. (2002). Okinawan Diaspora. University of Hawaii Press. p. 38.
- ↑ Patrick Heinrich; Mark Anderson (2015). Language Crisis in the Ryukyus. Cambridge Scholars Publisher. p. 63.
- ↑ Kimura, Yukiko (1992). Issei: Japanese Immigrants in Hawaii. University of Hawaii Press. p. 55.
- ↑ Setsu Shigematsu; Keith L. Camacho (2010). Militarized Currents Toward a Decolonized Future in Asia and the Pacific. University of Minnesota Press. p. 101.
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