According to a new survey, Japan has discovered that it has 7,000 additional islands that nobody knew about.
Since the last of the mapping of the country in the late 1980s Japan has been known to have 6,800 islands. A new digital mapping now shows that there are over 14,000 islands that belong to the Asian state. Experts say that, because mapping technology has improved and become more accurate, tiny islands have been discovered.
Japan consists of four main islands . There are some islands, for example the Kuril islands in the north, that Japan claims for itself but are controlled by Russia.
Islands can also form and disappear because of natural disasters like underwater volcanic eruptions or landslides.
Image : Japan and its islands – Credit: Reto Stöckli, NASA Earth Observatory,
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
