Talk:Ryukyu Islands

message: I propose that the geographic part be separated from the current article.
* Name the new geographic article Nansei Shotō. The name itself is less important than the proposed separation.
* I would also like to move the current article to Ryukyu, Ryūkyū or whatever (I am not interested in the macron debate). What is important is to strip "Islands" to indicate that this article is not about a geographic entity.
* Ryukyu Islands should be redirected to Ryukyu. Optionally, we may keep this article and let it focus on some confusion about the concept.
* Ryūkyū Shotō should remain a geographic article if we really need an article separate from Nansei Shotō.
What is definitely unacceptable in the current article is that the Ōsumi Islands, which clearly constitute mainland Japan in an ethnographic sense, are treated as a part of the Ryukyu Islands. Geographically speaking, the Ōsumi Islands are inarguably part of the Nansei Shotō (The tiny Tokara Islands are borderland. They were not conquered by the Ryūkyū Kingdom but suffered from American military occupation for several years.). That's why Ryukyu Islands cannot be an alias of Nansei Shotō. It is a shame that no one here (maybe except 219.126.174.61) seems aware of the important fact.
The current article mostly describes Ryūkyū as a cultural entity, which has no fixed boundaries. It is inherently ill-defined (in a geographic sense). By contrast, large geographic entities are clearly defined by authorities (To be precise, there remain some minor disagreements over the names and extents of the subgroups of the islands). The largest of all is the Nansei Shotō, which is much larger than Ryūkyū. The Ryūkyū Shotō (a geographic entity) do not contain the Amami Islands, which are considered to be part of cultural Ryūkyū (See Fig. 11 of ). So there is no way to keep geography and ethnography under a single article.
I checked English sources cited above and confirm that they are all inaccurate.
* Britannica claims that the Ryukyu Islands are also called Nansei Islands, Ryūkyū-Shotō or Nansei-Shotō in Japanese, and Okinawa in Ryukyuan. We cannot accept such an inconsistent "definition." Britannica suggests that Ryukyu Islands do not contain the Ōsumi or Tokara Islands. If so, the English name "Ryukyu Islands" corresponds to no standard entity in geography.
* MSN Encarta equates Ryukyu Islands with Nansei-Shoto but exclude the Ōsumi and Tokara Islands from Ryukyu Islands.
* The Collins English Dictionary is too inaccurate to be a reference.
We cannot follow them. The only solution is to reorganize geographic articles as defined by the standardization bodies and to put the rest under the vague title "Ryukyu." --Nanshu (talk) 03:03, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal

message: My proposal was not about choice of a name, but I admit it was complicated. I am even unsure if people here understand Ryūkyū Islands != Ryūkyū Shotō. There are at least three concepts involved.
* Japanese Nansei Shotō = (no English name? Nansei Islands?)
*: =  Satsunan Shotō (Ōsumi Guntō + Tokara Guntō + Amami Guntō) + Ryūkyū Shotō (Okinawa Guntō + Sakishima Guntō) + Daitō Shotō
*: = Satsunan Shotō + Okinawa Prefecture
*: ~= part of cultural mainland Japan + cultural Ryūkyū + frontier
* (no Japanese name) = English Ryukyu Islands
*: = Amami Guntō + Okinawa Guntō + Sakishima Guntō
*: = Amami Guntō + Ryūkyū Shotō
*: = Nansei Shotō - Ōsumi Guntō - Tokara Guntō - Daitō Shotō
*: ~= maximum extent of the Ryūkyū Kingdom ~= cultural Ryūkyū
* Japanese Ryūkyū Shotō = (no English name?)
*: = Okinawa Guntō + Sakishima Guntō
*: = Okinawa Prefecture - Daitō Shotō
*: ~= cultural Ryūkyū - Amami
OK. I leave this article untouched for now. However, as I said repeatedly, non-Ryukyu part of the islands must be handled properly. Unless an alternative is offered, I will create Nansei Shotō as an umbrella article. --Nanshu (talk) 23:16, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The common English name of Japanese Nansei Shotō is Ryukyu Islands, while Japanese concept Ryūkyū Shotō should be directly transcribe to Ryūkyū Shotō here. ––<Span xml:lang="zh-Hant-CN" lang="zh-Hant">虞海</Span> (Yú Hǎi) <Big>✍</Big> 13:44, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

text: Plus, the overall native Ryukyuans have never accept nor deny the the Japanese concept "Nansei Shotō" and "Ryūkyū Shotō", that are based on Japanese language. So we should keep the common English usage, i.e., partially rollback to version "20:50, 17 November 2011‎ AnomieBOT", as I did in version "22:15, 25 December 2011‎". ––<Span xml:lang="zh-Hant-CN" lang="zh-Hant">虞海</Span> (Yú Hǎi) <Big>✍</Big> 13:51, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Isn't my argument above clear to you? I don't see why you still insist that Nansei Shotō = Ryukyu Islands. It would be nice if you provide some evidence to support that we can safely use "Ryukyu Islands" as an alias of "Nansei Shotō" by ignoring the cultural non-Ryūkyū. --Nanshu (talk) 15:56, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

text: What is the point of your argument? --Nanshu (talk) 03:42, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know why you put it there, but "Ryūkyū Shotō" is the Japanese name of the Ryukyu Islands. The fact that you have some sort of weird confusion between what constitutes the Ryukyus from the rest of the Nansei chain is a bit ridiculous. We have an article on the Nansei Islands which is suitably separate from this one. Ryūkyū Shotō should not exist, and I am taking care of that now.—Ryulong (竜龙) 11:36, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plan B 

message: Kwamikagami reverted my edit saying "most refs just say "E.China". EB is not a RS anyway."
I am not sure what "most ref" means. Moreover he says "Encyclopædia Britannica is not RS" without reason ignoring another book reference provided.
Here are "most of references" that says Ryukyu Islands are on the boundary of East China Sea and Philippine Sea.
*
*
*
*
*
Lastly please answer a simple question; If the boundary of East China Sea and Philippine Sea is not Ryukyu Islands, where is the boundary?
::―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 23:49, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe Kwamikagami meant that most references state that the Ryukyu Islands are located solely within the East China Sea, rather than being the border between the East China and Philippine Seas.—Ryulong (竜龙) 00:04, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

text: We don't need refs in the info box for where they are. It's more a matter of style. The E.China Sea is much smaller, and so more precise. Noting they're on the boundary would also be OK. But they're not in the Philippine Sea – that would put them further out in the Pacific. — kwami (talk) 01:09, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I corrected per this discussion. ―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 10:39, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

text:  I cannot understand why, in presence of detailed stuff, you remain ignorant. According to the limits of seas defined by the IHO, the Daitō Islands are in the Philippine Sea. --Nanshu (talk) 14:42, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Location of Ryukyu Islands 

message: Please see the definition of Ryukyu Islands by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia. There are two definitions in it.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Ryukyu+Islands
>Ryu·kyu Islands
>An island group of southwest Japan extending about 1,046 km (650 mi) between Kyushu and Taiwan. 
>The archipelago was incorporated into Japan in 1879 and returned to Japanese sovereignty in 1972 after occupation by U.S. forces following World War II.
(There is a contradiction in it, for Tanegashima(種子島) and Yaku-shima (屋久島) of Ōsumi Islands (大隅諸島) had never been under the rule of "United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands(琉球列島米国民政府)" . )
And there is the another definition as follows.
>Ryukyu Islands
>(Placename) a chain of 55 islands in the W Pacific, extending almost 650 km (400 miles) from S Japan to N Taiwan: 
>an ancient kingdom, under Chinese rule from the late 14th century, invaded by Japan in the early 17th century, 
>under full Japanese sovereignty from 1879 to 1945, and US control from 1945 to 1972; now part of Japan again. 
(Masanori Asami (talk) 01:51, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: These two definitions are identical. They cover everything between Kyushu and Taiwan. Also, stop putting up a content fork at Ryukyu Arc. There is nothing that you have put there that is not covered here.—Ryulong (琉竜) 06:39, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: How shameless you are! (Masanori Asami (talk) 14:49, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

text: Are "1,046 km (650 mi)" and "650 km (400 miles) " equal?(Masanori Asami (talk) 14:49, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: They both mention the islands between "South Japan" and "Taiwan". The numbers used are inconsequential (as neither seem to be correct). Lay down the stick and comment on the content and not the contributor.—Ryulong (琉竜) 15:00, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  There are two definitions of the "Ryukyu Islands" in a certain online dictionary. 

message: I reverted your addition to the Ryukyu Islands article because it was incorrect. The island arc is one of  five chains that form three systems of the Boso Triple Junction, there are more than  two  arcs  and this one is geologically unique  and important, it is the equivalent of deleting the article on the Morrison Formation.   Eau(W)oo (talk) 03:47, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I moved the above from my talk page. You are correct, but was a revert necessary? You could have just added "southern". Right now the article doesn't even link to island arc (or mention the concept). Tijfo098 (talk) 03:55, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, the revert was necessary; my knowledge of the system is sufficient to know how wrong the addition was, but not sufficient to add the information in lay terms without a source. I consider it preferable to remove wrong information if one cannot immediately correct it. Just adding "southern" would have still left the sentence as an inaccurate description, as if you said a box is a volume with eight corners. Eau(W)oo (talk) 04:05, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

text: Yes, it should link to island arc, they are volcanoes, there is a trench. It is a complex system, though, and I do not know where it divides, as the northern part is usually distinct, for some geological reason, also, the outer trench system is not as complicated, hense a more thorough article already, as this system is complicated by the outer arc and stresses across both plates and/or other reasons. Give me a few million years, and I will be glad to write up the stratigraphy, but it would he a lot of research to write more than I did. There is probably an Annual Review article on the Boso Triple Junction with an introduction that could be used for it. Eau(W)oo (talk) 04:16, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Island arc 

message: There are two different article in japanese; Ryukyu islands (ja:琉球諸島) and Nansei islands (ja:南西諸島), several other languages (ko:, fr:, de:, ru:, pl: ...) made the difference too. The problem in english version made lot of problems in other wikis. some use sometime english as reference, and this make a non-sens situation. There is still interwiki link in articles, where wikidata, should be the only usage since one or two years now.Popolon (talk) 17:31, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: We've merged the two concepts into a single page because that's how it works in English.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 17:15, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mixing of two things in english article lead to errors in some other language wikis 

message: When I changed "ルーチュー" to "るーちゅー" For traditionality and got reverted, I started looking for what Ryūkyūans actually called this and found "うるま" and "宇流麻" in addition to various forms of "琉球". I know a city on Okinawa Island was named after "an old name" and for whatever reason was written in Hiragana instead of Kanji. User:Ryulong can't comment directly on this, but I'll gladly copy and paste if he says something on his talk page about this. But should this second name be added to the article somewhere? ミーラー強斗武 (talk) 03:47, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Ryūkyū" in Okinawan 

message: In the current version there are multiple sections discussing the Shimazu Clan, Tanegashima, two other Islands that did not belong to the Ryûkyû cultural area and after that "the Okinawa Islands" as if it wasn't the major focus of the entire article.
In contrast to this the history of the area is not discussed with the events on the island as a subject. Therefore I propose to delete the multiple Kyushu sections (and link them to articles on Kyushu etc) and to replace it with a narration of Ryûkyû's history with a focus on itself.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:C22:3A06:1B01:5AB0:35FF:FE84:735D (talk • contribs) 
:This is covered at History of Okinawa Prefecture/History of the Ryukyu Islands/wherever it is.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 07:18, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The section goes into more detail about Tanegashima clan than it does the Ryūkyū Kingdom, and hardly mentions the influence of China (which was as important if not more important than Japan's ATT). The whole thing needs to be expanded or removed to balance out all the undue weight. ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 07:29, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Currently in the process of adding ALL relevant history per Nanshu's precedent, starting with Chinese interaction and all of the major island groups. Someone reading the article before my additions would be led to believe that the islands have always had direct Japanese and no Chinese influence, that nothing happened on Okinawa before 1429 or even 1609, and that no people or significant events exist in the Sakishima Islands. This is blatant bias on Nanshu's part. ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 21:58, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  The history section highlights Japan's history more than the history of the Ryûkyûs 

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thread_title:  External links modified (January 2018) 

message: In the second paragraph of the article, it says "The islands beyond the Tokara Strait are characterized by their coral reefs."   
"Beyond" requires a point of view for the perspective, but as an outsider, I have no idea which direction is "Beyond" in this context. Please restate with an absolute rather than referential direction/area, thanks.  (e.g., The islands West/East/North/South of the Tokara Strait are characterized by their coral reefs.") 24.77.16.7 (talk) 01:23, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I have to agree that the word 'beyond' is unclear and should be replaced. UnderEducatedGeezer (talk) 07:04, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ambiguous word 'beyond' needs replacement 

message: There’s a population section, but it’s really about the inhabitants, the peoples living on the islands.  The actual population, in numbers, gets no mention. Boscaswell talk 06:08, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Population