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One of the Japanese Volcano Islands
the island in the Volcano Archipelago

Iwo Jima, now officially romanized Iōtō (硫黄島, "Sulfur Island"), is one of the Japanese Volcano Islands, which lie south of the Bonin Islands and together with them make up the Ogasawara Archipelago. Together with the Izu Islands, they make up Japan's Nanpō Islands. Although south of Tokyo on Honshu, Iwo Jima is administered as part of the Ogasawara Subprefecture of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. Only in size, the island is still volcanic and emits sulfurous gases. The highest point of Iwo Jima is Mount Suribachi at high. Although likely passed by Micronesians who made their way to the Bonins to the north, Iwo Jima was largely ignored by the Spanish, Dutch, British, and Japanese until a relatively late date after its 1543 rediscovery. The Japanese eventually colonized the island, administering it as the Ioto or Iojima Village under Tokyo's jurisdiction until all civilians were forcibly evacuated to Honshu in July 1944 near the end of World War II. Because it was able to provide secure airfields within easy range of the Japanese Home Islands, Iwo Jima was not passed by like other Pacific fortresses; instead, the Battle of Iwo Jima between February 1945 and March 1945 was some of the fiercest fighting of the Pacific War, with Imperial Japan and the United States both suffering over 20,000 casualties. Joe Rosenthal's photograph of the second flagraising on Mount Suribachi has become one of the most famous examples of wartime photojournalism and an iconic American image. Following the Japanese surrender, the US military occupied Iwo Jima along with the other Nanpo Islands and the Ryukyus; Iwo Jima was returned to Japan with the Bonins in 1968. Now technically part of the territory of the Bonins' Ogasawara Village, the island still has no permanent inhabitants except a Self Defense Force base on its Central Field. Its soldiers, sailors, and airmen receive their own services from Ayase or Sayama but provide emergency assistance to communities on the Bonins who are still connected with the mainland only by an infrequent day long ferry. The area of Iwo Jima continues to increase due to the uplift of the ground due to active volcanic activity; in 1911 it was , in 1945 it was , in 2014 it was and in 2023, it will be .

The original records of De la Torre's 1543 expedition have been lost, but he does not appear to have separately named Iwo Jima, despite later sources sometimes miscrediting him with the name Sulfur or Sulphur Island (orig. Isla Sufre or de Sufre). Instead, he seems to have only named the Volcano Islands as a group (orig. Balcones) after an eruptionprobably on South Iwo Jimaactive as his ship passed through the area. Other Spanish explorers may have named or renamed the island in the years afterward. Certainly, John Gore was aware of Spanish accounts of the area with him when he visited in 1779 and recorded its English name as Sulphur Island. The native Japanese reading of the same character 島 is shima (leading to the English misreading Iwo Shima), which typically shifts to jima when prefixed by another character. This version is the origin of the English names Iwojima, Iwo jima, and Iwo Jima, with many variant pronunciations including ,/iː//w//oʊ/'/dʒ//iː//m//ə/ and ,/iː//w//ə/'/dʒ//iː//m//ə/. This archaic or mistaken form of the Japanese name was particularly reinforced during the Second World War, when it was mistakenly used by Japanese naval officers who arrived to fortify the island ahead of US invasion. 80 km (43 nautical miles, 50 mi) north of the island is North Iwo Jima (北硫黄島) and south is South Iwo Jima (南硫黄島); these three islands make up the Volcano Islands group of the Ogasawara Islands. Just south of Minami Iō jima are the Mariana Islands. The visible island stands on a plateau (probably made by wave erosion) at depth about 15 m, which is the top of an underwater mountain 1.5 km to 2 km tall and 40 km diameter at base.

Iwo Jima has a history of minor volcanic activity a few times per year (fumaroles, and their resultant discolored patches of seawater nearby). In November 2015 Iwo Jima was placed first in a list of ten dangerous volcanoes, with volcanologists saying there was a one in three chance of a large eruption from one of the ten this century.

Earlier: An undersea volcano started, and built up into a volcanic island. It was truncated, either by caldera forming eruption or by sea erosion. 131±20BC and 31±20 BC: carbon 14 date of seashells found buried in lava at Motoyama (see map) Over the next century, other Spanish sailors passed the islandsparticularly once Alonso de Arellano found a safe northeastern route back to Mexico from the Philippineswithout settling or formally claiming them. The Volcano Islands did, however, form part of the notional boundaries between the Spanish and Portuguese Empires in the Eastern Hemisphere following the treaties of Tordesillas and Zaragoza, such that the Spanish considered them within their sphere of influence. 15 November 1779: Following British captain James Cook's death on Hawaii, ships previously under his command landed on Iwo Jima during the return voyage from his 3rd expedition. Under James King and John Gore, the expedition's surveying crew mapped the island, recording a beach at sea level which was above sea level by 2015 due to volcanic uplifting. Gore's visit was sometimes misunderstood or misrepresented as a new discovery, as in the report in the December 1786 supplement to The New London Magazine: text=“On the 14th [of October 1779], they discovered an island, about five miles long, lying in lat. 24d. 48m. long. 141d. 12m. On the south point of this is a high barren hill, which evidently presented a volcanic crater. The earth, rock, or sand (for it was not easy to distinguish of which its surface is composed) exhibited various colours; and a considerable part was conjectured to be sulphur, both from its appearance to the eye, and the strong sulphureous smell, perceived as they approached the point; and some thought they saw steams rising from the top of the hill. From these circumstances, Captain Gore gave it name of Sulphur Island.”
Early 1945: United States armed forces landed on a beach which by 2015 was above sea level due to volcanic uplift. 28 March 1957: A phreatic eruption occurred without warning northeast of Suribachi, lasting 65 minutes and ejecting material high from one crater. Another crater, wide and deep, formed by collapse 50 minutes after the eruption ended. 9–10 March 1982: Five phreatic eruptions occurred from vents on the northwest shore of the island. 21 September 2001: A submarine eruption began from three vents southeast of Iwo jima. It built a diameter pyroclastic cone. May to June 2013: Series of smaller volcanic earthquakes. April 2018: A number of volcanic earthquakes, high white plumes up to 30 October to 5 November 2019: Volcanic quakes and subaerial eruption. 29 April to 5 May 2020: Subaerial eruption and volcanic plume rising up to in height. 8 September to 6 October 2020: Volcanic plume up to in height and a minor eruption. 24 November 2021: Small phreatic eruption occurred with the ash plume height yet to be known. On 11 July 2022, the first magmatic eruption in over 1000 years began just offshore. The article was cited as saying "Officials of the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience (NIED) visited the site between July 12 and July 15 and observed volcanic eruptions every five minutes, which created water columns tens of meters high and spewed black smoke. The officials also observed many rocks that had washed ashore on the coast of Iwoto island. There were small cavities inside the rocks. The officials believe they are cooled lava, formed after magma has erupted, quickly cooled and solidified. The temperature on the inside of some of the rocks was as high as 120 degrees, according to the officials." At the beginning of November 2023, a series of continuous eruptions of material resulted in a new islet breaking the surface and beginning to grow. Following continuous volcanic activity since the initial eruption the island now dubbed Niijima, Japanese for 'new island', has continued to grow and is now visible from space.

Iwo Jima has a tropical climate (Af) with long hot summers and warm winters with mild nights.

The island was first visited by a Westerner in October 1543, by Spanish sailor Bernardo de la Torre on board the carrack San Juan de Letrán when trying to return from Sarangani to New Spain. In the late 16th century, the island was discovered by the Japanese. Before World War II Iwo Jima was administered as Iōjima village and was (and is today) part of Tokyo. A census in June 1943 reported an island civilian population of 1,018 (533 males, 485 females) in 192 households in six settlements. The island had a primary school, a Shinto shrine, and one police officer; it was serviced by a mail ship from Haha jima once a month, and by Nippon Yusen ship once every two months. The island's economy relied upon sulfur mining, sugarcane farming, and fishing; an isolated island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with poor economic prospects, Iwo Jima had to import all rice and consumer goods from the Home Islands. Even before the beginning of World War II, there was a garrison of the Imperial Japanese Navy at the southern part of Iwo Jima. It was off limits to the island's civilian population, who already had little contact with the naval personnel, except for trading. Throughout 1944, Japan conducted a massive military buildup on Iwo Jima in anticipation of a U. S. invasion. In July 1944, the island's civilian population was forcibly evacuated, and no civilians have permanently settled on the island since. War displaced islanders who are now in their 80s and older longed to return to the island, which they considered "a special place associated with memories both happy and sad". Their repeated requests to return to the island have not been realized given the reason that the area has a dynamic volcanic activity. Former islanders and their family members, however, are occasionally granted permission to visit the graves of their ancestors. Islanders and their descendants are trying to write down their memories, interview other former islanders, and create "a digital archive of photos to preserve memories of life on the now forbidden island to pass them down to posterity" for younger generations who may not appreciate that Iwo Jima was once a place many had called home.

The American invasion of Iwo Jima began on February 19, 1945, and continued to March 26, 1945. The battle was a major initiative of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. The Marine invasion, known as "Operation Detachment", was charged with the mission of capturing the airfields on the island for use by P 51 fighters, and rescue of damaged heavy bombers that were not able to reach their main bases at Guam and Saipan; until then Japanese warplanes from there had harried U. S. bombing missions to Tokyo. The battle was marked by some of the fiercest fighting of the war. The Imperial Japanese Army positions on the island were heavily fortified, with vast bunkers, hidden artillery, and 18 kilometers (11 mi) of tunnels. The battle was the first U. S. attack on the Japanese Home Islands and the Imperial soldiers defended their positions tenaciously. Of the 21,000 Japanese soldiers present at the beginning of the battle, over 19,000 were killed and only 1,083 taken prisoner. One of the first objectives after landing on the beachhead was the taking of Mount Suribachi. At the second raising of a flag on the peak, Joe Rosenthal photographed six Marines raising the United States flag on the fourth day of the battle (February 23). The photograph was extremely popular, and won the Pulitzer Prize for Photography that same year. It is regarded as one of the most significant and recognizable images of the war. After the fall of Mount Suribachi in the south, the Japanese still held a strong position throughout the island. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi still had the equivalent of eight infantry battalions, a tank regiment, two artillery, and three heavy mortar battalions, plus the 5,000 gunners and naval infantry. With the landing area secure, more troops and heavy equipment came ashore and the invasion proceeded north to capture the airfields and the remainder of the island. Most Japanese soldiers fought to the death. On the night of March 25, a 300 man Japanese force launched a final counterattack led by Kuribayashi. The island was officially declared "secured" the following morning. According to the U. S. Navy, "The 36 day (Iwo Jima) assault resulted in more than 26,000 American casualties, including 6,800 dead." Comparatively, the 82 day Battle of Okinawa lasted from early April until mid June 1945 and U. S. (five Army, two Marine Corps Divisions and Navy personnel on ships) casualties were over 62,000 of whom over 12,000 were killed or missing, while the Battle of the Bulge lasted 40 days (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945) with almost 90,000 U. S. casualties comprising 19,000 killed, 47,500 wounded and 23,000 captured or missing. After Iwo Jima was declared secured, about 3,000 Japanese soldiers were left alive in the island's warren of caves and tunnels. Those who could not bring themselves to commit suicide hid in the caves during the day and came out at night to prowl for provisions. Some did eventually surrender and were surprised that the Americans often received them with compassion – offering them water, cigarettes, or coffee. The last of these stragglers, two of Lieutenant Toshihiko Ohno's men (Ohno's body was never found), Kōfuku Yamakage and Rikio Matsudo, lasted three and a half years, surrendering on January 6, 1949. The U. S. military occupied Iwo Jima until June 26, 1968, when it was returned to Japan. In memory of the battle, three ships of the U. S. Navy have been named Iwo Jima:

Iwo Jima, a planned which began construction in early 1945, but cancelled in August 1945 with the end of the war. It was eventually scrapped in 1949. Iwo Jima, the lead ship of the s, served from 1961 to 1993, and scrapped in 1995. Iwo Jima, a , commissioned in 2001 and in active service as of 2023.