Miyako Islands in the context of "Ryukyu Archipelago"

The Ryukyu Islands (Japanese: 琉球列島, Hepburn: Ryūkyū Rettō), also known as the Nansei Islands (南西諸島, Nansei Shotō; lit. 'Southwest Islands') or the Ryukyu Arc (琉球弧, Ryūkyū-ko), are a chain of Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Taiwan: the Ryukyu Islands are divided into the Satsunan Islands (Ōsumi, Tokara and Amami) and Okinawa Prefecture (Daitō, Miyako, Yaeyama, Senkaku, Okinawa, Sakishima Islands (further divided into the Miyako and Yaeyama Islands), and Yonaguni as the westernmost). The larger ones are mostly volcanic islands and the smaller mostly coral. The largest is Okinawa Island.

The climate of the islands ranges from humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification Cfa) in the north to tropical rainforest climate (Köppen climate classification Af) in the south. Precipitation is very high and is affected by the rainy season and typhoons. Except the outlying Daitō Islands, the island chain has two major geologic boundaries, the Tokara Strait (between the Tokara and Amami Islands) and the Kerama Gap (between the Okinawa and Miyako Islands). The islands beyond the Tokara Strait are characterized by their coral reefs.

The Yaeyama Islands (八重山列島 Yaeyama-rettō, also 八重山諸島 Yaeyama-shotō, Yaeyama: Yaima, Yonaguni: Daama, Okinawan: Yeema, Northern Ryukyuan: やへま Yapema) are an archipelago in the southwest of Okinawa Prefecture, Japan, and cover 591.46 square kilometres (228.36 sq mi). The islands are located southwest of the Miyako Islands, part of the Ryukyu Islands archipelago. The Yaeyama Islands are the most remote part of Japan from the main islands and contain Japan's southernmost (Hateruma) and westernmost (Yonaguni) inhabited islands. The city of Ishigaki serves as the political, cultural, and economic center of the Yaeyama Islands. On maps dating to the 1700s, the Yaeyama Group of Islands appears as the "Majico Sima Group", "Nambu-soto Islands", "Nambu Soto", and the "Taipin Islands".

The Sakishima Islands (Japanese: 先島諸島 / 先島群島, Hepburn: Sakishima-shotō / Sakishima-guntō; Okinawan: Sachishima; Miyako: Saksїzїma; Yaeyama: Sakїzїma; Yonaguni: Satichima) are an archipelago located at the southernmost end of the Japanese Archipelago. They are part of the Ryukyu Islands and include the Miyako Islands and the Yaeyama Islands. The islands are administered as part of Okinawa Prefecture, Japan.

The Southern Ryukyuan languages (南琉球語群, Minami Ryūkyū gogun) form one of two branches of the Ryukyuan languages. They are spoken on the Sakishima Islands in Okinawa Prefecture. The three languages are Miyako (on the Miyako Islands) and Yaeyama and Yonaguni (on the Yaeyama Islands, of the Macro-Yaeyama subgroup). The Macro-Yaeyama languages have been identified as "critically endangered" by UNESCO and Miyako as "definitely endangered".

All Ryukyuan languages are officially labeled as dialects of Japanese by the Japanese government despite mutual unintelligibility. While the majority of Ryukyuan languages have used Chinese or Japanese script for writing, the Yaeyama Islands never had a full-featured writing system. Islanders developed the Kaidā glyphs as a simple method to record family names, items, and numerals to aid in tax accounting. This system was used until the 19th century introduction of Japanese-language education. Even today, communication in the Yaeyama or Yonaguni languages is almost exclusively oral, and written communication is done in Japanese.

Ryukyuan music (琉球音楽, Ryūkyū ongaku), also called Nanto music (南島歌謡, Nantō kayō), is an umbrella term that encompasses diverse musical traditions of the Amami, Okinawa, Miyako and Yaeyama Islands of southwestern Japan. The term of "Southern Islands" (南島, Nantō) is preferred by scholars in this field. The word "Ryūkyū" originally referred to Okinawa Island and has a strong association with the highly centralized Ryukyu Kingdom based on Okinawa Island and its high culture practiced by the samurai class in its capital Shuri. By contrast, scholars who cover a much broader region lay emphasis on folk culture.

The Miyakoan language (宮古口/ミャークフツ Myākufutsu/Myākufutsї [mjaːkufutss̩] or 島口/スマフツ Sumafutsu/Sїmafutsї, Japanese: 宮古語, romanized: Miyako-go) is a diverse dialect cluster spoken in the Miyako Islands, located southwest of Okinawa. The combined population of the islands is about 52,000 (as of 2011). Miyakoan is a Southern Ryukyuan language, most closely related to Yaeyama. As of 2025, the number of competent native speakers is not definitively known. As a consequence of the Japanese government's Japanese language policy, which has traditionally referred to the language as 宮古方言 (Miyako hōgen), or simply a dialect of standard Japanese, it is not taught or used in schools. As a result, most people born after 1970 tend to not use the language except in songs and rituals, and the younger generation almost exclusively uses Japanese as their first language. UNESCO classified Miyakoan as a "definitely endangered" language in its Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger in February, 2009. The Endangered Languages Project currently classifies the language as "severely endangered."

Miyakoan is notable among the Japonic languages in that it allows non-nasal syllable-final consonants, something not found in most Japonic languages.