Long before Okinawa and the surrounding islands were colonized by Japan in the 19th century, the Ryukyu Kingdom was an independent state that forged relationships with China, Taiwan and Japan, and had ...

As soon as you step onto Taketomi Island, southwest of Okinawa, it’s impossible not to notice that time flows much slower here than anywhere else. Paved roads are few, and so are automobiles and ...

Sign up for the best picks from our travel, fashion and lifestyle writers. In the southernmost reach of Japan, far closer to Taipei than Tokyo, sit the Yaeyama ...

It's quiet here in the morning. From outside my low-walled villa, a scratchy shuffle, like boots on cornflakes, begins the day on Taketomi Island, a speck in Okinawa's sprawling Yaeyama archipelago. I ...

Okinawa is Japan’s southernmost prefecture and is made up of a chain of over 160 islands located in the East China Sea between Taiwan and Japan’s mainland. Sometimes called the “Hawaii of Japan”, the ...

and a wrong way to enter Hoshinoya Okinawa. As I get out of the car that picked me up from Taketomi harbour and reach the clean, white, limestone walls of the resort, I'm faced with two entrances: one ...

Akiko Mizuno, 50, is a photographer living on Taketomi Island, part of the outlying Yaeyama island chain in Okinawa. She graduated from New York City’s School of Visual Arts in 1996 and began working ...