Ikikoku

map illustrating the path from the Daifeng commandery to Yamatai, and its distances in the Wajinden.

In the Chinese Wèizhì Wōrén chuán (Japanese 魏志倭人伝, Gishi Wajinden), part of the Records of the Three Kingdoms dating from the third century, mention is made of a country called “Iki”, (一支国, Iki-koku), located on an archipelago east of the Korean Peninsula. Archaeologists have tentatively identified this with the large Yayoi period settlement of Harunotsuji, one of the largest to have been discovered in Japan, where artifacts uncovered indicate a close contact with the Japanese islands and the Asian mainland.

It is sometimes referred to as "Idaikoku (一大国)", which may be a typographic error.^[7]

In historical records. It was said to have bigger fields than Tsukaikoku and a population three times larger.^[7]

There is a museum dedicated to the country located in Nagasaki.^[8]

Iki Province

The islands were organized as Iki Province under the Ritsuryō reforms in the latter half of the seventh century, and the name Iki-no-kuni appears on wooden markers found in the imperial capital of Nara.^[9]

During the Heian period, the island was attacked by Jurchen pirates in the Toi invasion of 1019. Afterwards, the islands came under the rule of the Matsura clan, who developed trade and commercial relations between Goryeo in Korea, Tsushima, Iki and Kyushu. However, the islands were again devastated by the Kamakura period Mongol invasions of Japan in 1274 and 1281 during which time many of its inhabitants were slaughtered. Throughout the Muromachi period, the islands were a main base for the Japanese Wokou pirates, who plundered coastal settlements in Korea and China. Following the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate in the Edo period, the islands came under the rule of Hirado Domain.

Modern period

Following the Meiji Restoration, the islands became part of "Hirado Prefecture" from 1871, which then became part of Nagasaki Prefecture.

The islands were fortified with numerous coastal artillery batteries during World War II, but did not experience any combat. Remains of these fortifications can be found on the island of Wakamiyajima, north of the main Iki Island. On November 18, 1948, Lt. William Downham, from the USAF 36th Fighter Group stationed at Ashiya Air Field, experienced engine failure in his North American P-51 Mustang while patrolling the Korea Strait between Japan and the Korean Peninsula. He successfully parachuted onto Iki Island.^[10]

In the 1960s and 1970s, in particularly the town of Iki, the islanders were notorious for overfishing, but blamed declining catches on the local species of whales and dolphins. In 1977, the local fishermen invited television companies to film the mass slaughter of dolphins. In response, activists heavily condemned the fishermen's acts of killing the dolphins.^[11] In view of the already endangered Japanese amberjack, the local town government banned large-scale, commercial fishing of Japanese amberjack after 1982.

A group of small scale fishermen in 2016 were reported as fighing back against this overfishing.^[12] As of 2018 fishermen are protesting against large vessels from Mainland Japan overfishing around Iki island.^[13]