What to See in Okinawa Island - Top Sights and Attractions

UNESCO-listed 14th-century castle ruins. Nakagusuku Castle is a gusuku in the village of Kitanakagusuku, Okinawa, Japan. It is one of a number of castles built on the island of Okinawa by the Ryukyu Kingdom now in ruins. The legendary Ryukyuan commander, Gosamaru, built the fortress in the early 15th century to defend against attacks from the east by Lord Amawari of Katsuren Castle. Amawari attacked the castle in 1458 and defeated Gosamaru shortly before his own castle was attacked by Uni-Ufugusuku. The castle was visited by Commodore Matthew C. Perry in 1853, who noted that the walls seemed to be designed to absorb cannon fire. The six courtyards of this fortress with stacked stone walls make it a prime example of a gusuku. It was added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2000. It is regarded as one of the 100 most famous castles in Japan. Less than 50 metres away from the castle is the Nakagusuku Hotel ruins.^[1]

Place of worship in Nanjo, Japan. Sefa-utaki, meaning "purified place of Utaki," is a historical sacred space, overlooking Kudaka Island, that served as one of the key locations of worship in the native religion of the Ryukyuan people for millennia. Later as a part of assimilation of Okinawa by Japan, it was shifted to serve as a Shinto Shrine. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Gusuku Sites and Related Properties of the Kingdom of Ryukyu in Nanjō, Okinawa.

Sefa Utaki is on the Chinen Peninsula, and has been recognized as a sacred place since the earliest period of Ryukyuan history. According to Chūzan Seikan, this was the spot where Amamikyu, goddess of creation, made landfall on Okinawa. The shrine area itself comprises a number of caves and overhanging ledges opening to the east and south among towering rock formations of a high promontory over the sea. All buildings have been destroyed, but the outer and inner precincts can still be traced.^[2]

The Tropical & Subtropical Arboretum is a 9-hectare arboretum and botanical garden located in the southern tip of the Ocean Expo Park at Ishikawa 424, Motobu-cho, Kunigami-gun, Okinawa, Japan. It is open daily without charge.

The arboretum was established in August 1976 on the site of the 1975 Okinawa Ocean Expo, and describes itself as the only tropical and subtropical arboretum in Japan with Okinawan climate. Its mission is education and the promotion of the urban afforestation, with sample gardens including nearly 37,500 plants representing 320 species of tropical and subtropical plants. Major arboretum features include an herb garden, hedge & vine area, ground cover area, street trees, and sections for salt and wind tolerant trees, palm trees, and bushes.

There is an aquarium in the botanical garden where rainforest fish such as Arapaima and various species of Arowana, Catfish, and Freshwater Stingray are bred.^[6]

Museum in Motobu, Japan. The Omoro Botanical Garden, also known as the Omoro Arboretum, is an arboretum and botanical garden located in the Ocean Expo Park, 424 Ishikawa, Motobu, Okinawa, Japan. It is open daily except Thursdays; admission is free.

This facility was opened in 1980 to commemorate the Okinawa International Ocean Exposition. At a 2003 press conference, Emperor Akihito suggested the garden serve as a parallel to Japan's Manyo botanical gardens, which feature plants appearing in the Man'yōshū anthology (much like a Shakespeare garden in the English-speaking world). Accordingly, this garden collects plants that are described in the Omoro Sōshi (おもろそうし), a collection of Okinawan poems and songs.

The garden contains about 400 species of salt-resistant plants organized into zones, including large trees (Ficus microcarpa, Ficus superba, Ficus virgata, Bischofia javanica, etc.), small trees (Maytenus diversifolia, Scaevola taccada, Wikstroemia retusa), shade trees (Artocarpus altilis, Ficus lyrata, Koelreuteria elegans subsp. formosana), and other plants including Antidesma pentandrum, Buxus liukiuensis (Makino), Clerodendrum inerme, and Murraya paniculata, as well as various garden plants, herbs, and so forth.

The garden also contains more than 110 wild orchid species, many of them endangered, native to the Ryukyu Islands. These include Acanthephippium pictum, Acanthephippium sylhetense, Bulbophyllum macraei, Dendrobium okinawense, Eria ovata, Eulophia graminea, Gastrochilus japonicus, Gerdorum densiflorum, Malaxis kandae, Neofinetia falcata, Sedirea japonica, and Tainia laxiflora.^[7]

Island chain in Japan. The Ryukyu Islands are, depending on definitions, the whole or part of a chain of Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Taiwan. According to the standardized geographical names of Japan, the Nansei Islands cover the entire island chain: the Ōsumi, Tokara, Amami, Okinawa, Sakishima Islands, the Senkaku Islands, and the Daitō Islands, with Yonaguni the westernmost. According to the standard, the Ryūkyū Shotō consist of the Okinawa, Sakishima and Senkaku Islands. A related term, the Ryukyu Arc, often excludes the outlying islands of Senkakus and Daitōs. The larger are mostly high islands and the smaller mostly coral. The largest is Okinawa Island.

The island chain is not a coherent entity. The climate of the islands ranges from humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification Cfa) in the north to tropical rainforest climate (Köppen climate classification Af) in the south. Precipitation is very high and is affected by the rainy season and typhoons. Except the outlying Daitō Islands, the island chain has two major geologic boundaries, the Tokara Strait (between the Tokara and Amami Islands) and the Kerama Gap (between the Okinawa and Miyako Islands). The islands beyond the Tokara Strait are characterized by their coral reefs.

The Ōsumi and Tokara Islands, the northernmost of the islands, fall under the cultural sphere of the Kyushu region of Japan; the people are ethnolinguistically mainland Japanese and speak a variation of the Kagoshima dialect of Japanese. The Amami, Okinawa, Miyako, and Yaeyama Islands have native populations collectively called the Ryukyuan people. The highly diversified Ryukyuan languages are traditionally spoken on these islands. In modern times, the Japanese language is the primary language of the islands, with the Okinawan Japanese dialect prevalently spoken. The outlying Daitō Islands were uninhabited until the Meiji period, when their development was started mainly by people from the Izu Islands south of Tokyo, with the people there speaking the Hachijō language.

Administratively, the islands are divided into Kagoshima Prefecture (specifically the islands administered by Kagoshima District, Kumage Subprefecture/District, and Ōshima Subprefecture/District) in the north and Okinawa Prefecture in the south, with the divide between the Amami and Okinawa Islands, with the Daitō Islands part of Okinawa Prefecture. The northern (Kagoshima) islands are collectively called the Satsunan Islands, while the southern part of the chain (Okinawa Prefecture) are called the Ryukyu Islands.^[9]