Okinotorishima

Okinotorishima, or Parece Vela, is a coral reef with two rocks enlarged with tetrapod-cement structures. It is administered by Japan with a total shoal area of and land area . Its dry land area is mostly made up by three concrete encasings and there is a stilt platform in the lagoon housing a research station. There is a third completely artificial tetrapod-cement islet. is located on the Palau–Kyushu Ridge in the Philippine Sea, southeast of Okidaitōjima and west-southwest of South Iwo Jima in the Bonin Islands or south of Tokyo, Japan. is the southernmost part of Japan and the only Japanese territory south of the Tropic of Cancer. Japan argues that is significant enough for it to claim a exclusive economic zone (EEZ) around it, but China, South Korea, and Taiwan dispute the Japanese EEZ, saying that the atoll does not meet the definition of an island under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The atoll may have been sighted first by Spanish sailor Bernardo de la Torre in 1543, although the first undisputed sighting was by Miguel López de Legazpi in 1565. Its first recorded name was Parece Vela (Spanish for "looks like a sail", alluding to the original appearance of the reef). This name has been retained in English as well, especially to designate the geological formations of the islets. In 1789, Captain William Douglas arrived with the British ship Iphigenia and, in 1790, the place was named Douglas Reef (also spelled Douglass Reef). This name continues to appear in modern sources. In 1796, what was likely the reef was then re-discovered by the brig Nautilus, under the command of Captain Charles Bishop, and the name Nautilus Rocks has appeared in some sources. The existence of the atoll might not have been known by the Japanese until 1888. In 1922 and 1925, the Japanese navy ship Manshu investigated the area. In 1931, confirming that no other countries had claimed the reefs, Japan declared it Japanese territory, placing it under the jurisdiction of the Tokyo Metropolis, classifying it as part of the Ogasawara Village, and naming it Okinotorishima, meaning "remote bird islands".