Hyōtanjima


Hyōtanjima is an uninhabited island in the Geiyo Islands chain in the Seto Inland Sea, in Japan. The island is split between Hiroshima Prefecture and Ehime Prefecture at a point where it is wide, the country's shortest prefectural border.

Etymology

The name Hyōtanjima literally translates to "calabash island", which refers to its shape.

Geography

Hyōtanjima is a calabash-shaped island located in the Seto Inland Sea, and is part of the Geiyo Islands chain. It is east of Ōmishima Island in Ehime, and about the same distance west of Ikuchijima Island in Hiroshima. It has a circumference of and an area of, and there are two hills on the island, one in the north and one in the south. The higher of the two hills is above sea level.
Five of the islands in the Seto Inland Sea are split by prefecture borders, including this one. The north end of Hyōtanjima is part of Tarumi, Setoda-cho in Onomichi, Hiroshima, while the south end belongs to Iguchi, Kamiura-cho in Imabari, Ehime. The border is around long, considerably shorter than the next shortest prefecture borders the TochigiSaitama border and the OkayamaKagawa border, which are and respectively.

Legend

According to a local legend, the of Ikuchijima and the of Ōmishima Island became engaged in a tug of war when they each tried to grab Hyōtanjima for themselves; seeing this, the people worried that Hyōtanjima was being stretched out of shape, and reconciled with each other to end the conflict. The legend is believed to have originated from disputes over fishing rights, and boundary stones from the Meiji era remain on the island as evidence of numerous attempts to resolve them.

History

The are known to have roamed Hyōtanjima. It was designated as a National Monument as a Place of Scenic Beauty on November 16, 2012.

In popular culture

The island served as one of the inspirations for the 1964 NHK drama .