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Disputed island group within Ryukyu Islands

The Senkaku Islands, also known as the Pinnacle Islands or the Diaoyu Islands in China and as the Tiaoyutai Islands in Taiwan, are a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, administered by Japan. The islands are located northeast of Taiwan, east of China, west of Okinawa Island, and north of the southwestern end of the Ryukyu Islands. The islands are the focus of a territorial dispute between Japan and China and between Japan and Taiwan. China claims the discovery and ownership of the islands from the 14th century, while Japan maintained ownership of the islands from 1895 until its surrender at the end of World War II. The United States administered the islands as part of the United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands from 1945 until 1972, when the islands returned to Japanese control under the Okinawa Reversion Agreement between the United States and Japan. The discovery of potential undersea oil reserves in 1968 in the area was a catalyst for further interest in the disputed islands. Despite the diplomatic stalemate between China and Taiwan, both governments agree that the islands are part of Taiwan as part of Toucheng Township in Yilan County. Japan administers and controls the Senkaku islands as part of the city of Ishigaki in Okinawa Prefecture. It does not acknowledge the claims of China nor Taiwan, but it has not allowed the Ishigaki administration to develop the islands. As a result of the dispute, the public is largely barred from approaching the uninhabited islands, which are about a seven hour boat ride from Ishigaki. Vessels from the Japan Coast Guard pursue Chinese ships crossing the maritime boundary in what one visiting journalist described in 2012 as "an almost cold war style game of cat and mouse", and fishing and other civilian boats are prevented from getting too close to avoid a provocative incident. The Senkaku Islands are important nesting sites for seabirds, and are one of two remaining nesting sites in the world for the short tailed albatross, alongside Tori shima, Izu Islands.

The islands are referred to as the in Japanese. In mainland China, they are known as the Diaoyu Islands or more fully "Diaoyu Dao and its affiliated islands" , while in Taiwan they are called the Diaoyutai Islands or Tiaoyutai Islands In Western sources, the historical English name Pinnacle Islands is occasionally still used when neutrality among the competing national claims is desirable. In Okinawan (northern Ryukyu), the islands are known as 2=魚蒲葵島 (3=ʔiyukubajima), while their Yaeyama (southern Ryukyu) name is iigunkubajima. Chinese records of these islands date back to as early as the 15th century when they were referred as Diaoyu in books such as Voyage with a Tail Wind (1403) and Record of the Imperial Envoy's Visit to Ryūkyū (1534). Adopted by the Chinese Imperial Map of the Ming Dynasty, the Chinese name for the island group (Diaoyu) and the Japanese name for the main island (Uotsuri) both mean "fishing".

Historically, the Chinese had used the uninhabited islands as navigational markers in making the voyage to the Ryukyu Kingdom upon commencement of diplomatic missions to the kingdom, "resetting the compass at a particular isle in order to reach the next one". The first published description of the islands in Europe appears in a book imported by Isaac Titsingh in 1796. His small library of Japanese books included Sangoku Tsūran Zusetsu (三國通覧圖說) by Hayashi Shihei. This text, which was published in Japan in 1785, described the Ryūkyū Kingdom. Hayashi followed convention in giving the islands their Chinese names in his map in the text, where he coloured them in the same pink as China. In 1832, the Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland supported the posthumous abridged publication of Titsingh's French translation. The name, "Pinnacle Isles" was first used by James Colnett, who charted them during his 1789 1791 voyage in the Argonaut. William Robert Broughton sailed past them in November 1797 during his voyage of discovery to the North Pacific in HMS Providence, and referred to Diaoyu Island/Uotsuri Island as "Peaks Island". Reference was made to the islands in Edward Belcher's 1848 account of the voyages of HMS Sammarang. Captain Belcher observed that "the names assigned in this region have been too hastily admitted." Belcher reported anchoring off Pinnacle Island in March 1845. In the 1870s and 1880s, the English name Pinnacle Islands was used by the British navy for the rocks adjacent to the largest island Uotsuri shima / Diaoyu Dao (then called ); Kuba shima / Huangwei Yu (then called Ti a usu); and Taishō tō / Chiwei Yu. A Japanese navy record issued in 1886 first started to identify the islets using equivalents of the Chinese and English terms employed by the British. The name "Senkaku Retto" is not found in any Japanese historical document before 1900 (the term "Senkaku Gunto" began being used in the late 19th century), and first appeared in print in a geography journal published in 1900. It was derived from a translation of the English name Pinnacle Islands into a Sinicized Japanese term "Sento Shoto" (as opposed to "Senkaku Retto", i. e., the term used by the Japanese today), which has the same meaning. The collective use of the name "Diaoyutai" to denote the entire group began with the advent of the controversy in the 1970s.

[[File:Senkaku bonito. jpg|thumb|left|Japanese workers at a bonito fishery processing plant on Uotsuri shima sometime around 1910 owned Uotsuri, Kita Kojima, and Minami Kojima. Kunioki's sister owned Kuba. The islands came under US government occupation in 1945 after the surrender of Japan ended World War II. In 1969, the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) identified potential oil and gas reserves in the vicinity of the Senkaku Islands. In 1971, the Okinawa Reversion Treaty passed the U. S. Senate, returning the islands to Japanese control in 1972. Also in 1972, the Republic of China government and People's Republic of China government officially began to declare ownership of the islands. Since 1972, when the islands reverted to Japanese government control, the mayor of Ishigaki has been given civic authority over the territory. The Japanese central government, however, has prohibited Ishigaki from surveying or developing the islands. In 1978, a Japanese political group constructed the first lighthouse on Uotsuri island and grazed two goats. Goats have since proliferated and affected the island's vegetation. In 1979 an official delegation from the Japanese government composed of 50 academics, government officials from the Foreign and Transport ministries, officials from the now defunct Okinawa Development Agency, and Hiroyuki Kurihara, visited the islands and camped on Uotsuri for about four weeks. The delegation surveyed the local ecosystem, finding moles and sheep, studied the local marine life, and examined whether the islands would support human habitation. In 2005, a Japanese fisherman who owned a lighthouse at Uotsuri Island expressed his intention to relinquish the ownership of the lighthouse, and the lighthouse became a national property pursuant to the provisions of the Civil Code of Japan. Since then, the Japan Coast Guard has maintained and managed the Uotsuri lighthouse. The reaction of the Kan Cabinet to the September 2010 Senkaku boat collision incident was seen by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as "a very foolish move" and "frighteningly naive". On December 17, 2010, Ishigaki declared January 14 as "Pioneering Day" to commemorate Japan's 1895 annexation of the Senkaku Islands. China condemned Ishigaki's actions. In May 2012, both the Tokyo Metropolitan and Japanese central governments announced plans to negotiate purchase of Uotsuri, Kita Kojima, and Minami Kojima from the Kurihara family, China's Foreign Ministry objected saying Beijing would not "sit back and watch its territorial sovereignty violated." In 2014, Japan constructed a lighthouse and wharf featuring Japanese flag insignia on the islets.

thumb|right|A geological map of Uotsuri shima drawn by Japanese geologist Hisashi Kuroiwa in 1900. Uotsuri, Kitakojima, Minamikojima and surrounding islets are sedimentary in origin, predominantly consisting of probably Miocene aged sandstone and sandstone conglomerate, with subordinate conglomerate, coal seams up to 10 centimetres thick, and rare siltstone beds. The sedimentary strata have around 300 metres of exposed thickness at Uotsuri, and have SW NE, EW and NW SE strikes, with a general inclination of a dip of less than 20 degrees towards the North. These strata are intruded by sheets of Mio Pliocene porphyritic hornblende diorite, and are fringed by recent coral outcrops and surface talus deposits. Kuba and Taisho are volcanic in origin, with Kuba comprising "pyroxene andesite, lava, volcanic bombs, pumice, limestone, and other rocky material" and Taisho is thought to be consist of "andesite, tuff breccia, and tuffaceous sandstone".

Permission for collecting herbs on three of the islands was recorded in an Imperial Chinese edict of 1893. Several floral surveys have been conducted on the Senkaku islands, with a 1980 survey finding that Uotsuri had 339 species of plants. These ecological communities varied based on altitude, with the communities being divided into windswept mountaintop vegetation with Podocarpus macrophyllus trees, with the understory including Liriope muscari and Rhaphiolepis umbellata, inclined high forest including the palms Livistona chinensis and Arenga engleri, lowland windswept shrub forest including Ficus microcarpa and Planchonella obovata, and seashore plants. Minamikojima was much less diverse, and dominated by grasses, while Kitakojima only had sparse plant life. Kuba has a forest near the crater, which includes a variety of flora including Ceodes umbellifera, Macaranga tanarius, Ficus benjamina, Diospyros maritima, Trema orientalis, Machilus thunbergii, and Livistona subglobosa, with forest floor plants being sparse. Kitakojima and Minamikojima are one of only two significant breeding places of the rare short tailed albatross (Phoebastria albatrus). Uotsuri shima, the largest island, has a number of endemic species such as the Senkaku mole (Mogera uchidai) and Okinawa kuro oo ari ant. Due to the introduction of domestic goats to the island in 1978, the Senkaku mole is now an endangered species. The striped field mouse (Apodemus agrarius) has also been noted to be present on Uotsuri. Surveys from 1900 to 1953 and noted the presence of the Asian house shrew, black rats and fruit bats but these were not noted in more recent surveys.

Diaoyu Islands: The Truth is a documentary film produced by Chris D. Nebe and J. J. Osbun of Monarex Hollywood Corporation and directed by Chris D. Nebe. Nebe calls on the Japanese Government to cede the islands to China, asserting that Japan has no justifiable claim to the islands, and that the United States of America has turned a blind eye in Japan's favor due to the need of the United States to have a strong ally between it and China. Reception of the film was positive in Chinese media, while the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Correspondents Report called Nebe a 'Chinese propagandist' in 2014. In 2018 the National Museum of Territory and Sovereignty (currently located in the Toranomon Mitsui Building, Chiyoda, Tokyo) was established by the Japanese government to raise public awareness of Japanese territorial rights issues concerning the Senkaku Islands, as well as issues concerning territorial claims to Takeshima and southernmost Kuril Islands.