Chichijima

Chichijima (Japanese: 父島) is the largest and most populous of the Bonin Islands. Chichijima is about 240 km (150 mi) north of Iwo Jima. 23.5 km2 (9.1 sq mi) in size, the island is home to about 2,120 people (2021). Connected to the mainland only by a day-long ferry that runs a few times a month, the island is nonetheless organized administratively as the seat of Ogasawara Village in the coterminous Ogasawara Subprefecture of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. Together with the Volcano and Izu Islands, it makes up Japan's Nanpō Islands. Some Micronesian tools and carvings have been found elsewhere in the Bonins, but Chichijima was long uninhabited when it was rediscovered. Ignored by the Spanish, Dutch, and Japanese Empires for centuries, it was finally claimed by a passing British captain in 1828 and settled by an international group from the Hawaiian Kingdom two years later, the original nucleus of the Bonin Islanders. Britain subsequently yielded to Japanese claims and colonization of the island, which established two villages at Ōmura (大村) and Ōgimura-Fukurosawa (扇村袋沢村). These were formally incorporated in 1940, just before the civilian population was forcibly evacuated to Honshu in 1944 during the end of World War II. After the Surrender of Japan, the United States Armed Forces occupied the islands for two decades, destroying Japanese homes and businesses and only allowing resettlement by Bonin Islanders. Following the resumption of Japanese control in 1968, ethnic Japanese rapidly became the majority again. All visitors to the island arrive by ferry at Futami Port (Port Lloyd), the chief harbor of Bonin Islands, in the north of Chichijima. The port is surrounded by the major village on the Bonin Islands.

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