Okinawa... it seems so long ago.

Are you really going to Okinawa?

From Flickr user Okinawa Soba (Rob).

Okinawa is actually 161 small islands.

Fija Byron teaching at a university in Okinawa.

Okinawa is actually 161 small islands.

The , or , is a monorail line in Naha, Okinawa, Japan.

Are you serious?

Naha is the political, economic and education center of Okinawa Prefecture.

Are you aware that Okinawa is closer to China than to Honshu?

This post looks at Okinawan, one of the endangered languages in the southern half of Okinawa island in the Ryukyu region, which now constitutes Japan's Okinawa prefecture.

KT The decision to construct a US military base in Henoko and Oura Bay in Okinawa Prefecture.

Before the end of the list of credits there is a list of names under R.I.P.

The aircraft entered service on the Tokyo Okinawa route in 1974.

In Okinawa Prefecture, 580,000 people in 18 municipalities were advised to evacuate.

The Hatoyama government s floundering was not confined to the issue of the US base on Okinawa. Indeed, it also grossly neglected to deal with an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Miyazaki Prefecture, allowing the disease to spread out of control.

The other disappointment has been the government s failure to get the US to move its Marine airbase out of Okinawa.

The Hatoyama government s floundering was not confined to the issue of the US base on Okinawa.

South Korea has beefed up its military alliance with the US

Others chafe at the burden of US bases, particularly on the island of Okinawa.

Local residents of the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa have long opposed the presence of American military bases there.

Okinawa was to be a staging area for Operation Downfall, the American invasion of the Japanese Home Islands.

They were born in Okinawa Prefecture, as Japanese citizens, and saw themselves as belonging there.

Those who believed Okinawa should not declare independence were 58.7 and 57.4 respectively.

The May 1972 transfer back to Japan of Okinawa, which the United States had administered, included the Senkaku Islands.

Some of this relates to North Korea s nuclear weapons and a concern that the US will not adequately represent Japan s interests (such as accounting for Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea years ago.)

To make matters worse, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) has threatened to leave the government coalition if Hatoyama breaks his promise a move that would deny the DPJ a simple majority in the Diet s upper house.

Other issues concern the basing of US marines in Okinawa and sharing the costs of moving some to Guam.

Yet, during the DPJ s election campaign, Hatoyama vowed to eliminate the Marines presence on Okinawa.

He teaches Uchinaguchi (Okinawan), one of the endangered languages in the southern half of Okinawa island, and was born and raised in Okinawa.

Three buildings in Nagano Prefecture and Okinawa Prefecture were destroyed completely and, in the same prefectures, eight buildings were partially destroyed.

Within Japan, there is growing controversy over the Hatoyama government s push for a law that would allow particular foreign residents on the island to vote in local elections.

South of Okinawa is Yonaguni Island, with a population of just 1,800 and visible from Taiwan on a clear day.

The US has declared that the Senkaku Islands (administered by the Okinawa Prefecture when it was returned to Japan in 1972) are covered by the US Japan security treaty.

The US has declared that the Senkaku Islands (administered by the Okinawa Prefecture when it was returned to Japan in 1972) are covered by the US Japan security treaty.

The scheme was called the , after , Okinawa Prefectural police officer in charge of 730, who invented the scheme.

We found our second Blue Zone on the other side of the planet, about 800 miles south of Tokyo, on the archipelago of Okinawa.

In May 1972, when the United States returned the Okinawa Prefecture to Japan, the transfer included the Senkaku Islands, which the US had administered from Okinawa.

By promising in last summer s election campaign to expel America s bases on Okinawa, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama put himself in a bind.

Moving the base to the lightly populated Henoko District in the northern part of Okinawa a solution agreed by both governments is the only realistic choice.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama s government is seeking to realign foreign policy and rework a 2006 deal for the basing of US military personnel on Okinawa.

He also earned the distrust of the United States, Japan s most important ally, by advocating the relocation outside Japan of a US air base on Okinawa.

Indeed, the very existence of the Japanese nation was endangered, as most cities were bombed, Okinawa was invaded, and atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Some Ryukyuan people felt, as the Allied Occupation began, that the Ryukyus (Okinawa) should eventually become an independent state, instead of being returned to Japan.

As if demonstrating its intention to ignore the protest, on April 21 Chinese Navy vessels sailed northward, between Okinawa and the Miyako islands, and conducted a large scale exercise.