History
Okinawa was not always Japanese. For roughly 450 years, from 1429 until 1879, it was the Ryukyu Kingdom — an independent maritime trading state whose ships connected China, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia, and whose court culture, language, and religion developed on a separate track from the rest of Japan. Even today, the Ryukyuan languages are considered linguistically distinct enough from mainland Japanese that some linguists classify them as a separate branch of the Japonic language family, not a dialect.
Okinawa and the wider world
Okinawa’s relationship with outside powers has been unusually intense for its size. The Ryukyu Kingdom itself was a tributary state of Ming and Qing China for centuries, absorbing Chinese architectural and administrative influence, before Japan formally annexed it as a prefecture in 1879 (a process known as the Ryukyu Disposition). Then, in April-June 1945, Okinawa became the site of the Battle of Okinawa — the largest amphibious assault of the Pacific War and one of its bloodiest campaigns, with estimated civilian deaths in the tens of thousands, a substantial share of the prewar population.
The US administered Okinawa directly for 27 years afterward, not returning it to Japanese sovereignty until 1972 — a full two decades after the rest of Japan regained independence in 1952. US military bases still occupy a significant share of Okinawa’s main island today, a presence that remains a genuinely debated political issue locally, distinct from how the rest of Japan experiences the US-Japan security relationship.
Okinawa and mainland Japan
Precisely because of this history, Okinawa’s relationship with “mainland” Japan (naichi, in local usage) carries more cultural distance than the usual prefecture-to-prefecture rivalry seen elsewhere in this guide — closer to how Hawaii relates to the continental United States than how, say, Osaka relates to Tokyo.
Getting there and getting around
Naha Airport is Okinawa’s main air gateway, with direct international flights from several East Asian hubs. Okinawa is an island chain, not a single landmass — getting to the outer islands (Miyako, Ishigaki, Kerama) generally means a short domestic flight or ferry from Naha.
