Random Facts

With my last day of work rapidly approaching, people seem to be asking me more and more about where I will be living for the next couple of years. While I have NO IDEA what this island will have in store for me, google has helped me once again. Here are some random facts that I found. I apologize to the many people and websites that I plagiarized from!! I even found one site that said that there was approximately one vending machine for every seven people on the island. If that's true, that's a LOT of vending machines!!! Ha! Enjoy the random facts.

________________________________________________________________

Okinawa is a small tropical island in the Pacific Ocean, just south of mainland Japan and near Taiwan, measuring 485 square miles in size, 67 miles long and varying from 2 to 18 miles wide.

It’s climate is semi-tropical with an average annual temperature of 72 degrees with an average of 82 degrees in July and 61 degrees in January. Often referred to as, “Japan’s Hawaii”, the average annual rainfall is about 82.7 inches per year. Sugar cane, pineapples, bananas, papayas, guavas, mangoes, passion fruits, and other tropical fruits and plants are grown on Okinawa and its surrounding islands.

The average life expectancy of men is 76.3 years and women 83.7 years -- this was the longest not only in Japan, but also in the world. The people of Okinawa live on a diet of low-fat and low-salt foods that include tofu, seaweed and fish. This diet could be why they are some of the longest-lived people in the world

The area of 14 US bases are 233 square kilometres (90 sq mi), occupying 18% of the main island. Okinawa accounts for less than one percent of Japan's land, but hosts about two-thirds of the 40,000 American forces in the country.