Japan now has 14,125 islands. This is more than twice as much as previously thought. According to a 1987 Japan Coast Guard report, there were neither more nor less than 6 852 islands in the country.
However, the new — only evidence of the advantages of the technological excellence of today's geodesy and the maximum detail of the maps used for counting. This nickname does not change the total area of land owned by Japan.
Experts explain that there is no international standard on how to correctly count islands, so the Japanese used the same criteria as in the previous survey 35 years ago. Thus, all natural land areas with a circumference of at least 100 meters were counted. At the same time, artificially reclaimed lands were not taken into account.
Meanwhile, a number of islands are the subject of territorial disputes between several countries.
Thus, Japan makes claims to the southern Kuril Islands, which rightfully belong to Russia .
Japan also claims that it has a historical claim to the uninhabited Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea that it currently controls, but China has disputed this claim on numerous occasions.
Meanwhile, Japan and South Korea remain embroiled in a more than 70-year-old dispute over the sovereignty of a group of islands in the Sea of Japan, known in Seoul as Dokdo and in Tokyo — Takeshima. By the way, the Sea of Japan itself in Korea is considered East.
