Tanegashima

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Tanegashima is an island lying to the south of Ky sh , in southern Japan, and is part of Kagoshima Prefecture. The island is the second largest of the Osumi Islands. It is a long low stretch of land, carefully cultivated, 57.5 kilometers from north to south, and 5 12 kilometers from east to west. On the island, there is a city, Nishinoomote, and two towns, Nakatane and Minamitane. The towns belong to Kumage District. New Tanegashima Airport serves the island, offering daily flights to Kagoshima and Osaka. This island is celebrated as the site of the first known contact of Europe and the Japanese, in 1543. A Ryukyuan trading post had been established there several decades earlier, and all traffic from the Ryukyus to Kagoshima on Ky sh , in southern Japan, was obliged to pass through this station. Thus it was that the Portuguese ship, having been blown off course from China to Okinawa made their way to Tanegashima, and not directly to Japan proper.... Mehr