page_title: Senkaku Islands
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Senkaku Islands / Geography
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of Senkaku Islands with numbers
context_page_description: The Senkaku Islands are a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea. They are located east of China, northeast of Taiwan, west of Okinawa Island, and north of the southwestern end of the Ryukyu Islands. They are known in China as the Diaoyu Islands or Diaoyu Dao and its affiliated islands, in Taiwan as the Tiaoyutai Islands / Diaoyutai Islands, and in the Western World are sometimes impartially referred to by the historical name Pinnacle Islands.
  The islands are the focus of a territorial dispute between Japan and China and between Japan and Taiwan. China claims the discovery and ownership of the islands from the 14th century, while Japan maintained ownership of the islands from 1895 until its surrender at the end of World War II. The United States administered the islands as part of the United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands from 1945 until 1972, when the islands returned to Japanese control under the Okinawa Reversion Agreement between the United States and Japan. The discovery of potential undersea oil reserves in 1968 in the area was a catalyst for further interest in the disputed islands.
context_section_description: The island group are known to consist of five uninhabited islets and three barren rocks.  China has identified and named as many as 71 islets that belong to this group after the Japanese Cabinet released names of 39 uninhabited islands.
  These minor features in the East China Sea are located approximately 120 nautical miles northeast of Taiwan, 200 nautical miles east of the Chinese mainland and 200 nautical miles southwest of the Japanese island of Okinawa.
  According to one visitor, Uotsuri-shima, the largest of the islands, consists of a pair of rocky gray mountains with steep, boulder-strewn slopes rising almost straight from the water's edge. Other, nearby islands were described as large rocks covered by low vegetation.
  In ascending order of distances, the island cluster is located:
  140 km (76 nmi; 87 mi) east of Pengjia Islet, ROC (Taiwan)
  170 km (92 nmi; 110 mi) north of Ishigaki Island, Japan
  186 km (100 nmi; 116 mi) northeast of Keelung, ROC (Taiwan)
  410 km (220 nmi; 250 mi) west of Okinawa Island, Japan
  The depth of the surrounding waters of the continental shelf is approximately 100–150 metres (330–490 ft) except for the Okinawa Trough on the south.
  The existence of the back-arc basin complicates descriptive issues. According to Professor Ji Guoxing of the Asia-Pacific Department at Shanghai Institute for International Studies,
  China's interpretation of the geography is that
  ...the Okinawa Trough proves that the continental shelves of China and Japan are not connected, that the Trough serves as the boundary between them, and that the Trough should not be ignored ....
  Japan's interpretation of the geography is that
  ...the trough is just an incidental depression in a continuous continental margin between the two countries ... [and] the trough should be ignored ....
caption: The five islands and three rocks, numbered for the table above.
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