Okinawa
Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan.
Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan. It consists of three main island groups—the Okinawa Islands, the Sakishima Islands, and the Daitō Islands—spread across a maritime zone approximately 1,000 kilometers east to west and 400 kilometers north to south. Despite a modest land area of 2,281 km2, Okinawa's territorial extent over surrounding seas makes its total area nearly half the combined size of Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu. Of its 160 islands, 49 are inhabited. The largest and most populous island is Okinawa Island, which hosts the capital city, Naha, as well as major urban centers such as Okinawa, Uruma, and Urasoe. The prefecture has a subtropical climate, characterized by warm temperatures and high rainfall throughout the year. People from the Nansei Islands, including Okinawa, the Sakishima Islands, and parts of Kagoshima Prefecture, are often collectively referred to as Ryukyuans. However, there are significant cultural and customary differences between individual islands and even between local communities.
Adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Worth seeing in and around Okinawa
3 places within 25 km that the world writes about, in the order of how widely: the ones a visitor has heard of first, then the ones only a local would name.
- 01Kanna Dam
The Kanna Dam is a concrete gravity dam on the Kanna River in Ginoza, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. The purpose of the dam is water supply and flood control.
5.4 km · dam in Ginoza, Okinawa · Wikipedia - 02Okinawa National College of Technology
The National Institute of Technology, Okinawa College is a college of technology in Nago, Japan. Its abbreviated name is NIT-Ok.
4.2 km · Japanese college of technology · Wikipedia - 03Ginoza Municipal Museum
Ginoza Village Museum opened in Ginoza, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan in 1994. The displays relate to the history and folkways of the area.
3.3 km · museum in Ginoza, Okinawa, Japan · Wikipedia
Ranked by the number of language editions of Wikipedia with an article on each, from Wikidata; the sentences are the openings of those articles, CC BY-SA 4.0.
What Wikivoyage says to see
Most people come to Okinawa for the sun and beaches. Even in midwinter, when many areas of the mainland Japan teeter around the freezing point, temperatures rarely dip below 15°C in Okinawa. For more adventurous types, the vast yet almost uninhabited island of Iriomote is covered in dense jungle.
From Wikivoyage: Okinawa, CC BY-SA 4.0. Not yet checked by us.
Things to do
Okinawa is the best place in Japan for all sorts of watersports. The Okinawa archipelago is one of the world's best diving destinations, with the count of marine species on par with the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. You can find over 400 types of corals, 5 types of sea turtles, manta rays, whale sharks, hammerhead sharks and many kinds of tropical fish.
From Wikivoyage: Okinawa, CC BY-SA 4.0. Not yet checked by us.
Where to eat
Okinawan cuisine is distinctly different from that of mainland Japan. Unlike the simplicity of classical Japanese food, which tries to highlight individual ingredients, Okinawan cuisine mixes lots of ingredients in a single dish to create complex, balanced flavors. Indeed, Okinawa's most famous dish is chanpurū (from the Malay word campur, meaning "mix"), a stir-fry of multiple vegetables and meats.
From Wikivoyage: Okinawa, CC BY-SA 4.0. Not yet checked by us.
Getting to Okinawa
- Airports
- Naha (OKA), 50 km
- Naha → Okinawa18 km · quickest by road, 48 min · ¥285–390
- Kagoshima → Okinawa640 km · quickest by air, 6h 12m · ¥36,650–53,240
- Miyazaki → Okinawa713 km · quickest by air, 6h 50m · ¥28,190–41,990
- Plan a tripFrom anywhereThe planner compares every way there from wherever you are.
Road and air are today’s quick answer; timetabled trains, buses and ferries load on the results page from the operators’ feeds.
No local-transport research exists yet for Okinawa
Our researched notes are written from a sourced entry: every shared taxi, boat and village bus with its operator, its rule, its fare and the year we saw it, and what could not be confirmed. Nobody has done that work for Okinawa. What is above is what we hold from open sources; nothing here pretends to be more.
- Get inFerry services to Okinawa have been cut drastically, with Arimura Sangyo filing for bankruptcy and RKK Line stopping passenger services entirely.
- Get inAs of 2024, the only survivors are A-Line Ferry, aka Maru-A (マルエー), and Marix Line, which run from Kagoshima to Naha (25 hours, ¥16,560 2nd class one-way) on alternating days.
- Get inThe ferries are fairly utilitarian but comfortable enough, with sleeping arrangements varying from shared spaces of tatami in 2nd class (二等 nitō) to private cabins in special class (特等 tokutō).
- Get inAll ferries call at various minor islands including Yoron and Amami Oshima along the way.
- Get aroundFerry and air connections link the islands together, but many of them are simply so small in population that scheduled services may be infrequent and prices vary.
From Wikivoyage: Okinawa, CC BY-SA. Not yet checked by us; that article was last edited 2026-06.
- 0176 km
- 02461 km
- 03802 km
- 04820 km
- 05992 km
If you know how people move in Okinawa – the stand, the rule, the fare – tell us, and the note gets an entry.
Next door to Okinawa
Okinawa is 45 km from Naha, the nearest large city, whose note carries the wider picture.