Ogasawara Archipelago
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How it came to be
The Ogasawara Islands lie in the north-west Pacific about 1,000 km south of the main Japanese islands. Their name comes from a legend that Ogasawara Sadayori found them in 1593, but a claim to the discovery filed in 1722 by a man presenting himself as his descendant was judged false. In 1675 the shogunate sent a ship to survey the islands, but it did not develop them.
In 1827 Captain Frederick William Beechey of the Royal Navy arrived at Chichijima in HMS Blossom and claimed the islands for Britain. In 1830 a group of Westerners and Pacific Islanders including the American Nathaniel Savory moved from Hawaii to Chichijima, and Matthew Perry called there in 1853. The shogunate sent the foreign magistrate Mizuno Tadanori and others on the Kanrin Maru in 1862, and in 1876 the Meiji government notified other countries of Japanese rule.
After the Second World War the islands came under United States administration, and they were returned to Japan on 26 June 1968. Only Chichijima and Hahajima are inhabited today. Up to 70% of the woody plants are endemic, as are more than 90% of over 100 native land snail species, and the islands were inscribed in 2011 as a natural site showing ongoing evolution on oceanic islands.
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