Tsushima Island
(1996 pop. 44,000). Tsushima Island, which is actually two main islands totaling 694 square kilometers and more than one hundred smaller ones in the strait between Japan and South Korea, belongs to Nagasaki Prefecture. Its principal industries are fishing and forestry. The island's largest city is Izuhara.
As Japan's closest landmass to the Asian continent, Tsushima traditionally served as an integral link in Japan's relations with China and Korea. The island was devastated by the Mongols during their two invasions of Japan in 1274 and 1281. In the following centuries, Tsushima became a base for Japanese pirate (wako) activity in the area. In an effort to halt the pirate menace, Korea sent punitive expeditions against the island in 1389 and 1419. From the fifteenth through the mid-nineteenth centuries, Korean-Japanese trade was supervised by the So daimyo family of Tsushima and restricted to walled compounds (wakan) in Korea.
After American commodore Matthew Perry opened Japan to the outside world in the 1850s, Tsushima also played a key role in the country's new relationship with the West. In 1861, Russia failed in an attempt to take the island. Then, in 1905, the decisive naval battle of the Russo-Japanese War was fought in the waters off Tsushima, assuring Japan of victory over the European power.
Further Reading
Toby, Ronald. (1984) State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
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