JAKARTA - Japan announced the addition of its previously unknown island after conducting digital recounts, more than previously estimated but did not increase the overall area.
Digital mapping carried out by the Japan Geospatial Information Authority (GSI) recently found that there are 14,125 islands in Japanese territory, more than double the number of 6,852 islands that have been officially used since the 1987 report by the Japanese Coast Guard, reported CNN March 3.
However, GSI this week stressed that the new figures reflect advances in the survey technology and the details of the maps used for calculating, not changing the overall area of Japan's land.
It said that while there was no international agreement on how to calculate islands, they used the same size criteria as the previous survey 35 years ago.
The island in this survey is defined in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which states that the island is a naturally formed "land area, surrounded by water, which is above the water at a time of high tide."
The move to recalculate the number of registered islands comes amid criticism that the data is old and the actual numbers can be very different. New figures can affect entry in educational and other materials, according to Kyodo News.
The government has been using figures released in 1987 by the Japanese Coast Guard. At that time, the coast guard registered islands around 100 meters or larger as shown on Japanese maps. The islands in river lakes or sandbags were not included in that number.
The total size of the national region is calculated using the same digital map regardless of the registered islands. Meanwhile, the territorial waters will not be affected because remote islands in Japan are subject to separate surveys.
Although computers detected more than 100,000 islands, only islands traveling 100 meters or larger were selected to be included in the official list.
hit and Kagoshima Prefectures in southwest Japan each have 1,479 and 1,256 islands. Meanwhile, 1,473 islands are registered in Hokkaido, northern Japan.
Interestingly, the number of these new islands does not include artificially reclamationd land.
In addition, the islands surrounding Japan are known to be the center of several regional disputes.
Japan claims Russia-controlled southern Kuril Islands, which Tokyo calls the Northern Region, a dispute that started at the end of World War II, when Soviet Union forces seized the island from Japan.
Japan also said it had historical claims over the uninhabited Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, which they currently manage, but China has repeatedly opposed these claims.
In addition, Japan and South Korea are still caught in a dispute over more than 70 years over the sovereignty of a group of islands known as Dokdo by Seoul and Takeshima by Tokyo in the Sea of Japan, which Korea calls the East Sea.
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