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Welcome to the Japanese Island of Tanegashima, Osumi Islands on Virtualtripping.
By Mark on July 12, 2010
This is a post about the Japanese Island known as Tanegashima, it lies to the south of Kyūshū, in southern Japan, and is part of Kagoshima Prefecture. The island is the second largest of the Osumi Islands. It is a very long in land stretching from 57.5 kilometers or 35.73 miles from north to south, and 5–12 kilometers or 3 to 7 miles from east to west. This island is an habital place where people do live on and you will find that there is a city, known as Nishinoomote, and ther are also two other towns, known as Nakatane and Minamitane. The towns belong to Kumage District. You can actually fly to this island as it has a
New Tanegashima Airport which serves the island, and offers daily flights to Kagoshima and Osaka in mainland Japan.
This island is very important to the Japanese and it’s government as it is the home of the Tanegashima Space Center, where the H-IIA F11 launch vehicle lifts off from Tanegashima Space Center. It is also the headquarters of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the Tanegashima Space Center spaceport is located at the southeastern end of the island.
Also on July 22, 2009 a Solar Eclipse happened and it was seen from the island of Tanegashima, so what is total solar eclipse, well it occurs when the Moon will pass between the Earth and the Sun, this means that the suns reflection appears on the moon, as the moon will totally or partially obscure the Earth’s view of the Sun. When this event happens you will find that the Moon’s apparent diameter becomes larger than the Sun, so blocking all direct sunlight, and turning day into darkness. So what was so special about this eclipse,well it was the longest total solar eclipse during the 21st century, and will not to be surpassed until 13 June 2132. This particular eclipse lasted 6 minutes and 39 seconds off the coast of Southeast Asia, causing tourist interest in eastern China, Japan, India, Nepal and Bangladesh.
Now this island will often celebrate being the site where there was first known contact of Europeans and the Japanese, in 1543. There was trading post which had been created a few decades earlier, and all traffic from the Ryukyus to Kagoshima on Kyūshū, in southern Japan, was obliged to pass through this station. So this is how it happened a Portuguese ship, that was blown off course from China to Okinawa then went on to made their way to Tanegashima Island, instead of going to mainland Japan properly. Now some of you may know and other won’t that in Japan firearms are known as “Tanega-shima”, this supposingly is due to the belief that they were introduced by the Portuguese onboard that ship. But the Europeans did not just come to trade in guns, but also other goods like, soap, tobacco and others unknown in medieval Japan, for the Japanese goods. So there is quite alot of history about this island, so if you ever get the chance to visit you should.
- Learn about Tanegashima on Wikipedia:
- Learn about the Kuril Islands Dispute on Wikipedia:
- Find Tangeshima on Google Maps:
Posted in Asia | 2 Comments
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2 Responses to “Welcome to the Japanese Island of Tanegashima, Osumi Islands on Virtualtripping.”
« Virtualtripping, presents Naha, the capital city of the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa. | Home | Virtualtripping discoves Kangaroo Island and it’s little penguins, Australia. »
Nick Ramsay, exploring the world from a zabuton in Japan.
2:04 am on July 13th, 2010
Interesting stuff, Mark. That last photo is a rather odd choice (it’s an ad for a study hall), but hey, at least it was taken on Tanegashima!
7:08 pm on July 13th, 2010
Well I never, would you believe it, I need to learn Japanese A.S.A.P, glad you liked the post there are some interesting islands surrounding mainland Japan,
thanks for the comment.