Where are the islands?

Where are the islands?

Many Japanese places have island in their names. But many of them are not islands. What happened?

The Japanese word for island is shima. We have Hiroshima, Kashima, Yashima, Shimabara. These places are not islands today. But they were islands not long ago. For example, a famous battle was fought at Yashima at the year 1185. It was an island then, less than a thousand years ago. 

Japanese landscape is often very steep, often bombarded by volcanoes and earthquakes. Many great changes of landscape are very recent. Shimabara was hit by volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis in 1792. That volcano, earthquakes and tsunamis killed over 15,000 people. A volcano eruption at Sakurajima in 1914 threw out so much lava. It connected the jima (shima) to the mainland. 

Because of active geological activities, Japanese landscapes are very dynamic.