Great Eight Islands 大八島（大八洲）

The islands of Japan were made by Izanagi and Izanami, a god and a godess, according to "Kojiki", one of the oldest history books of Japan. Eight islands, Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku, Awaji, Iki, Tsu, Oki and Sado, were made at first, and they made six smaller islands afterwards. So, Japan is also known as "Oyashima", meaning the Great Eight Islands.

Later, sometime at the end of the seventh century or at the beginning of the eighth century, the coontry was divided into sixty-eight kuni or provinces for administrative purposes. Both Awaji and Sado were given the status of independent province.

The RSGB has a nice award program of the IOTA, Island on the Air, and the IOTA contest will be held during the next weekend. I think it is a good program and have enjoyed it on the activator's side several times, although I am not a holder of the award. However, I find some problems in the program. One of them is that it does not recognize the historic difference of Awaji and Sado mentioned above: it only has one island group, Honshu's Coastal Islands, IOTA AS-117, for those two big islands together with many other islands.

I happened to visit those two islands in the spring of the year before the last. As every Japanese knows, they are quite different in terms of geography, climate, history etc. I composed an e-mail to send to the manager of the award program, but gave up sending it as I was nobody in the program.

(The northern tip of Awaji Island seen from the Akashi Strait.)

(The northern coastline of Sado Island viewed from the top of Onogame, a cape with a steep hill.)

ご存知のとおり、日本には、「大八島」、「大八洲」（おおやしま）という別名があります。イザナギの尊とイザナミの尊がはじめに八つの島を作ったと古事記に書いてあるそうです。最初に淡路島を、七番目に佐渡島を作ったそうです。

また、律令制の整備とともに、国内に６８の「国」が置かれましたが、淡路も佐渡も独立の国でした。

今度の週末にIOTAコンテストがあります。筆者は、IOTAのチェイサーではありませんが、アクティベーションの面で、この賞のおかげで、楽しませていただき、良いプログラムだと思っています。ただ、若干の問題点を感じていて、その一つが、本州沿岸の島のグループ、AS-117　として、淡路も佐渡も一緒にされてしまっていることです。英国から遠く、言葉も違うことで、島のグループの指定が地理や歴史を考慮しないものになってしまっているのでしょうか。

一昨年の春にたまたま淡路島、佐渡島の両方に行きましたので、このグルーピングの無理を強く感じました。事務局にメールを出そうかと、英作文をしたのですが、アワードを持っているわけでもないし、ナンバーを増やしてくれる可能性も低そうなので、やめてしまいました。