Japan has discovered that it has 7 thousand new islands thanks to advanced survey mapping technology, which makes the number of islands rise to twice what was previously thought.
And while Japan witnessed the formation of new islands and the disappearance of other islands, geographers said that the official statistics that show that it consists of about 6 thousand islands are far from reality.
Using digital mapping technology, geographers have declared that the number of islands in Japan is actually double the number previously recognized, according to media reports.
In the first survey of its kind in 35 years, Japan's Geospatial Information Authority (GSI) showed that there are 14,125 islands, which is about double the number of 6,852 islands recorded by the country in 1987, according to CNN.
When the Japanese Coast Guard counted the number of islands 35 years ago, the technology was unable to distinguish between small groups of islands and larger individual islands, meaning thousands of such islands were miscounted.
In the years that followed, volcanic eruptions also contributed to the formation of new islands, and together they doubled the area of the island that was previously thought to have.
The GSI scientists adopted the same method to tabulate the number of islands by marking only those with a circumference of 100 meters (330 feet) or more, which were natural formations.
The same calculation methods were used to confirm Japanese territory, but the agency added the use of aerial photographs and checked the results alongside previous maps, without including reclaimed land.
Scientists made a list previously for each island they found, manually, but they not only deleted small islands, but also left sandy banks and islands inside lakes and rivers. At the time, these landmasses were not considered islands but are now recognized under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Source: gizmodo.com
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