Names of Okinawa

Okinawa (沖縄) is a name with multiple referents. The <a href="/facts/Endonym/8pyd1nE9">endonym</a> refers to <a href="/facts/Okinawa_Island/b5V1XXmd">Okinawa Island</a> in southwestern <a href="/facts/Japan/U5mz0SRT">Japan</a>. Today it can cover some surrounding islands (i.e., <a href="/facts/Okinawa_Islands/Dv93k1YS">Okinawa Islands</a>) and, more importantly, can refer to <a href="/facts/Okinawa_Prefecture/2PNlxv5K">Okinawa Prefecture</a>, a much larger <a href="/facts/Prefectures_of_Japan/qfbjCbfH">administrative division of Japan</a>, although the people from the <a href="/facts/Miyako_Islands/4ro40Tz5">Miyako</a> and <a href="/facts/Yaeyama_Islands/jgxcnAoB">Yaeyama Islands</a> still feel a strong sense of otherness to Okinawa.
A related term, Ryūkyū (琉球), also has multiple semantic domains. It was a name for an <a href="/facts/Ryukyu_Kingdom/fKFl8pj2">Okinawa-centered kingdom</a> before it was replaced with Okinawa Prefecture in 1879. Ryūkyū was an <a href="/facts/Exonym/8pyd1nE9">exonym</a> for Okinawa Island and remained largely alien to the native populations. Westerners have used the word for a larger chain of islands (the <a href="/facts/Ryukyu_Islands/94rjkv8f">Ryukyu Islands</a>, or the Ryukyus), for which the native populations have no folkloristic term. Detached from the native populations' perception, the Western usage became mainstream in multiple disciplines of natural sciences although there remains a non-negligible disagreement over the exact extent of the un-Ryukyuan term.

Names of Okinawa open-in-new

Names of Okinawa