Yonaguni

Proper noun

Yonaguni

1. A town and island of Yaeyama district, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan; the westmost inhabited island of Japan.
   • Yonaguni, with three tiny villages and a small airport, is Japan’s westernmost point, a place from which Taiwan is visible on a clear day. It is also the closest spot of inhabited land to the Senkakus, a small group of uninhabited islets controlled by Japan but also claimed by China and Taiwan...
   • This put Yonaguni and its 1,600 mostly aging residents uncomfortably close to a bruising diplomatic showdown with Beijing last September over a Chinese trawler detained near the Senkakus, which resulted in Tokyo’s backing down. The government of Prime Minister Naoto Kan has since vowed to beef up...2011 February 10, Martin Fackler, “Japanese Isle in Sea of Contention Weighs Fist Versus Open Hand”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 21 Jan 2013, Asia Pacific
2. A Ryukyuan language spoken on the island of Yonaguni.