Okinawa Island

Okinawa Island, also called Okinawa Main Island, is the largest of the Okinawa Islands and of the Ryukyu or Nansei Islands of Japan, in the Kyushu region. It is about 106 kilometres long and an average of 11 kilometres wide, with an area of roughly 1,207 square kilometres, and lies about 640 kilometres south of the main island of Kyushu and 500 kilometres northeast of Taiwan. The climate is humid subtropical, and the highest point is Mount Omoto at 525.5 metres, with few hills over 100 metres elsewhere on a largely flat landscape. The prefectural capital Naha stands on the southwestern part of the island, and the island's population was about 1.38 million in 2009. Okinawa became a strategic base for the United States armed forces after the Battle of Okinawa, was under United States civil administration until 1972, and American installations still cover about a quarter of the island.