page_title: Bonin Islands
section_title: Demography, language and education
hierarchical_section_title: Bonin Islands / Demography, language and education
caption_attribution_description: English: Oubeikei-Tomin(Inhabitants of American-European Origins in Ogasawara Islands) circa 1930日本語: 1930年頃の小笠原諸島の欧米系島民
context_page_description: The Bonin Islands, also known as the Ogasawara Islands, or, Yslas del Arzobispo, are an archipelago of over 30 subtropical and tropical islands, some 1,000 kilometres directly south of Tokyo, Japan. The name "Bonin Islands" comes from the Japanese word bunin, meaning "no people" or "uninhabited". The only inhabited islands of the group are Chichijima, the seat of the municipal government, and Hahajima.
  Ogasawara Municipality and Ogasawara Subprefecture take their names from the Ogasawara Group. Ogasawara Archipelago is also used as a wider collective term that includes other islands in Ogasawara Municipality, such as the Volcano Islands, along with three other remote islands. Geographically speaking, all of these islands are part of the Nanpō Islands.
  A total population of 2,440, 2,000 on Chichijima and 440 on Hahajima, lives in the Ogasawara Group, which has a total area of 84 square kilometres.
  Because the Ogasawara Islands have never been connected to a continent, many of their animals and plants have undergone unique evolutionary processes.
context_section_description: Virtually all of the Bonin Islands' inhabitants are Japanese citizens. This includes the significant proportion with ancestors from the United States, Europe and other Pacific islands, who can often be distinguished by their family names and ancestry, physical features or adherence to Christianity. During and after the US military occupation of 1946–68, a small minority of islanders opted for US citizenship and/or emigrated from the islands. However, most islanders with non-Japanese ancestry now appear to be reassimilating with the ethnic Japanese majority.
  Japanese is the common language. Because settlers from the United States, Europe and other Pacific islands preceded ethnic Japanese residents, an English-lexified pidgin which subsequently developed into a creole, known as Bonin English, Ogasawara Creole or Ogasawara Mixed Language, emerged on the islands during the 19th century. This was the result of Japanese being hybridised with island English, resulting in a mixed language that can still be heard.
  The Ogasawara Village municipality operates public elementary and junior high schools, while Tokyo Metropolitan Government Board of Education operates Ogasawara High School.
caption: An islander, who appears to be a Christian clergyman of US or European descent, in about 1930
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