Multidisciplinary research about historical and geographical condition and meaning of Ryukyu Island in South sea area

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This paper's main aim was to investigate historical and geographical conditions in South Sea area from many angles. Previous geographical studies on Ryukyu Islands handled cites, villages, folk custom, trade, etc. separately as an individual topic. Most of those studies focused on one district of Okinawa or Amami area, too. The accumulation of those individual studies, however, does not show us the overall picture of Ryukyu in vast context of East China Sea or South China Sea. Therefore, this study carried out the field research of coast area of China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Okinawa and Amami, and studied on city and village landscape, influence and acceptance of traditional geographical view, the propagation process of traditional farm crop, exchange of goods and trading, comparison on food culture, and difference in geographical education in past and today. By this effort to study Ryukyu from many angles, we could clarify the multi-layered historical rolls of Ryukyu for great degree. This achievement was partially published by participating researchers, and in the international research conference at Okinawa Prefectural Archives in 2007. We also published the research report to introduce part of our result. These achievements, however, have not fulfilled our original aim. We could clarify most of the diffusion process and modification of historical and geographical affairs in South Sea area, but we regret that our achievement in this study was limited to identify the diffusion and influence of cultural affair in one direction only. In long history, cultural interaction and diffusion would mix and tangle in multi directions in most complicate behavior, and by moving in every direction, it would create completely new condition. It is our future aim to clarify such multi directional phenomena and to deepen our understanding in this region.