Japanese Islands: How Many There Are and What the Main Ones Are Called
The Japanese islands are an archipelago of four large islands (Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku) and thousands of small ones. In February 2023, the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan recounted them using digital maps and arrived at 14,125 — twice the figure of 6,852 that the Coast Guard had published since 1987. No new islands appeared: only the counting method changed. In Japanese, the archipelago is called 日本列島.
Let's look at where the figure 14,125 came from and why it doesn't mean islands suddenly appeared out of nowhere, as well as the character 島, which appears in every island name — from Hiroshima to Kagoshima. We'll also see how Hokkaido's nature differs from Okinawa's and which archipelagos, besides the four main islands, are part of the country.
14,125 Islands Instead of 6,852 — and It's Not a Discovery but a Recount
Since 1987, reference books had listed 6,852 islands — a figure published by the Japanese Coast Guard after its own count. In February 2023, the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (国土地理院) recounted the islands using modern digital maps and announced a new number: 14,125. The basis of the archipelago hasn't changed: four large islands — Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku — and thousands of small ones scattered in an arc along the eastern edge of Asia, from subarctic latitudes in the north to the subtropics in the south.
| Island | Writing | Area | What It's Known For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Honshu | 本州 | ≈228,000 km² (2014) | the largest island of the archipelago: Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto |
| Hokkaido | 北海道 | ≈78,000 km² (the island itself, excluding small neighbors) | second largest, the only 道 among the country's 47 units |
| Kyushu | 九州 | ≈37,000 km² (calculated from authority data) | the country's southern gateway, seven prefectures |
| Shikoku | 四国 | ≈18,000 km² | the smallest of the four, the pilgrimage route of 88 temples |
| Okinawa | 沖縄島 | ≈1,207 km² | the largest island of the Ryukyu chain, subtropical climate |
Why the Number Doubled Rather Than New Islands Appearing
The difference between 6,852 and 14,125 is not in the land but in the counting method. The 1987 count relied on aerial photographs of its time, while the 2023 recount used detailed digital maps. The criterion became uniform: every natural landmass with a coastline of at least 0.1 km was counted, without double-counting and without artificial islands.
日本列島 — Why 'Chain of Islands' Rather Than Just 'Islands'
The official Japanese name of the archipelago is 日本列島 (Nihon rettō), not simply 'Japanese islands' in a literal translation. There are three characters here: 日本 'Japan', 列 'row, line', and 島 'island'. The same character 列 is used in words about things arranged in a line — 列車, 'train' (literally 'row of carriages'), and 行列, 'queue'. Therefore 列島 is not a chaotic scattering but an image of islands arranged in a chain along the edge of the continent.
島 — значение: island, a piece of land in water — онъёми: トウ — кунъёми: しま — 10 штрих(ов). 島 — 'island': the same character stands last in 列島 and in almost every name with island geography — 広島 (Hiroshima, 'wide island'), 鹿児島 (Kagoshima), 徳島 (Tokushima), and in the word 半島 it means 'peninsula'.
| Japanese | Reading | Translation |
|---|---|---|
| 日本列島 | Nihon rettō · Nihon rettō | The Japanese archipelago, official name |
| 島 | shima · shima | Island |
| 本州 | Honshū · Honshū | Honshu — the largest island of the archipelago |
| 九州 | Kyūshū · Kyūshū | Kyushu — the third largest |
| 四国 | Shikoku · Shikoku | Shikoku — the smallest of the four |
| 北海道 | Hokkaidō · Hokkaidō | Hokkaido — the second largest island |
Write 島 along the guides — the 'island' character, without which no Japanese place name on the map is complete.
What 列島 Means Without the First Part
The word 列島 also exists on its own: it means 'archipelago, chain of islands' — that's how any country's islands are called in Japanese, not just Japan's. And 日本 at the beginning is the same part as in 日本語 (nihongo, 'Japanese language') and 日本人 (nihonjin, 'Japanese person'): it simply says whose archipelago it is.
One Country — from Snow to the Subtropics
The islands of the archipelago stretch across almost all latitudes at once: on Hokkaido, snow lies for months in winter, while on Okinawa subtropical plants bloom at the same time. Even within one weather zone there's no uniformity: the side of the archipelago facing the Sea of Japan gets buried in snow in winter due to moist winds from the continent, while the Pacific side of the same islands is drier and sunnier at that time. In summer and autumn, typhoons come from the south — they most often affect Kyushu, Shikoku, and southern Honshu.
Mountains Along the Spine and a Narrow Strip of Life at the Edges
The archipelago lies at the junction of several tectonic plates, and a mountain range with active volcanoes runs along all four main islands. About three-quarters of the land is occupied by mountains and foothills rather than plains, so large cities and fields historically clung to a few coastal lowlands — this narrow strip remains the most populated part of the country.
Beyond the Four Main Ones: Ryukyu, Izu, Ogasawara, and Others
Besides Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku, several other archipelagos are part of the country. In the southwest, from Kyushu toward Taiwan, the Ryukyu chain (南西諸島) with Okinawa stretches for 1,200 km. To the southeast of Tokyo runs the Izu island chain, and further out in the open ocean is the Ogasawara archipelago: since 2011 it has been on the UNESCO World Heritage list for its unique nature, untouched by proximity to the continent. In the Sea of Japan lies Sado Island — notable in itself, though not among the four largest.
Most of the 14,000 Have Neither Inhabitants Nor a Name of Their Own
Of the 14,125 islands counted by the Geospatial Information Authority in 2023, only 334 have an area greater than one square kilometer. The vast majority of the increase consists of rocks, reefs, and patches of land with no permanent residents and no name on the map: they were counted, but no one lives there and no one names them.
FAQ
- How many islands are there in Japan in total?
- According to the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan as of February 2023 — 14,125. This is the result of a new count using digital maps, which replaced the figure of 6,852 published by the Coast Guard back in 1987. No land was added: only the counting method changed, and it included thousands of small islets and reefs that were previously not counted separately.
- What are the four main islands of Japan called?
- Honshu (本州) — the largest, with Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto; Hokkaido (北海道) — the second largest, in the north; Kyushu (九州) — in the southwest, seven prefectures; Shikoku (四国) — the smallest, known for the pilgrimage of 88 temples. Together with the adjacent small islands, they form the basis of the archipelago.
- Which island of Japan is the largest?
- The largest island of the archipelago is Honshu, about 228,000 km² according to the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan for 2014: Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, and Kyoto are located on it. The second largest is Hokkaido, about 78,000 km² for the island itself, excluding the smaller adjacent islands.
- Why did the number of Japanese islands change in 2023?
- The Geospatial Information Authority of Japan switched to counting using modern digital maps instead of the old Coast Guard method from 1987: now every natural landmass with a coastline of at least 0.1 km is counted, without double-counting. No new islands appeared — the previous method simply missed many small rocks and islets.
- How is 'Japanese islands' written in Japanese?
- The official name of the archipelago is 日本列島 (Nihon rettō): 日本 means 'Japan', and 列島 means 'chain of islands', where 列 is 'row' and 島 is 'island'. The word 列島 without the first part is also used for other countries' archipelagos, not just Japan's.
- Is Okinawa part of the Japanese islands?
- Yes: Okinawa is the largest island of the Ryukyu chain (南西諸島), which stretches from southern Kyushu toward Taiwan for almost 1,200 km and is administratively part of Japan. Okinawa is not among the four main islands — Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku — it is a separate archipelago with its own climate and history.
Sources
Updated: 2026-09-22