Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD: Japan has discovered 7,000 new islands it did not count in the previous estimate.
The Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI) recently discovered 14,125 islands in Japanese territory, more than doubling the official figure of 6,852 that has been in use since a 1987 report by Japan’s Coast Guards.
The GSI, however, emphasised that the new figure represented advances in surveying technology and the description of the maps used for the count and that it did not change the general area of land in Japan’s possession.
While there is no international consensus on how to count islands, it said it used the same size criterion as in the previous survey some 35 years ago. This entailed calculating the circumference of all naturally occurring land areas with a diameter of at least 100 meters (330 feet).
The new figure excludes any artificially reclaimed land. Several territorial disputes have erupted around Japan’s surrounding islands.
Claims of Japan
Japan also lays claim on the Russian-held southern Kuril Islands, dubbed the Northern Territories by Tokyo, in a dispute that dates back to the culmination of World War II when Soviet troops seized them from Japan.
Japan also claims a historical connection to the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, but China has consistently denied this claim. Japan and South Korea have been at odds for more than 70 years over the sovereignty of a group of islets in the Sea of Japan known as Dokdo by Seoul and Takeshima by Tokyo.
