Tsushima Strait in the context of "Hakata Bay"

Fukuoka Prefecture (福岡県, Fukuoka-ken; Japanese pronunciation: [ɸɯ̥.kɯꜜ.o.ka, -kɯ.o.kaꜜ.keɴ]) is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Fukuoka Prefecture has a population of 5,109,323 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 4,986 km (1,925 sq mi). Fukuoka Prefecture borders Saga Prefecture to the southwest, Kumamoto Prefecture to the south, and Ōita Prefecture to the southeast.

Fukuoka is the capital and largest city of Fukuoka Prefecture, and the largest city on Kyūshū, with other major cities including Kitakyushu, Kurume, and Ōmuta. Fukuoka Prefecture is located at the northernmost point of Kyūshū on the Kanmon Straits, connecting the Tsushima Strait and the Seto Inland Sea across from Yamaguchi Prefecture on the island of Honshu, and extends south towards the Ariake Sea.

34°35′58″N 129°47′48″E / 34.59944°N 129.79667°E / 34.59944; 129.79667

The Korea Strait is a sea passage in East Asia between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. It connects the East China Sea, the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan in the northwest Pacific Ocean. The strait is split by Tsushima Island into two parts: the Western Channel, and the Tsushima Strait or Eastern Channel. It is economically important, as many shipping lanes pass through the strait, and both Japan and South Korea allow free passage through it.

Tsushima (Japanese: 対馬, Hepburn: Tsushima) is an island of the Japanese archipelago situated in-between the Tsushima Strait and Korea Strait, approximately halfway between Kyushu and the Korean Peninsula. The main island of Tsushima, once a single island, was divided into two in 1671 by the Ōfunakoshiseto canal and into three in 1900 by the Manzekiseto canal. These canals were driven through isthmuses in the center of the island, forming "North Tsushima" (Kamino-shima) and "South Tsushima" (Shimono-shima). Tsushima also incorporates over 100 smaller islands, many tiny. The name Tsushima generally refers to all the islands of the Tsushima archipelago collectively. Administratively, Tsushima is in Nagasaki Prefecture.

The island group measures about seventy by fifteen km (43 by 9 mi) and had a population of about 28,000 as of 2022. The main islands (that is, the "North" and "South" islands, and the thin island that connects them) are the largest coherent satellite island group of Nagasaki Prefecture and the eighth-largest in Japan. The City of Tsushima lies on Tsushima and is divided into six boroughs.

Iki Island (壱岐島, Iki-no-shima), or the Iki Archipelago (壱岐諸島, Iki-shotō), is an archipelago in the Tsushima Strait, which is administered as the city of Iki in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. The islands have a total area of 138.46 square kilometres (53.46 sq mi) with a total population of 28,008. Only four (4) of the twenty-three (23) named islands are permanently inhabited. Together with the neighboring islands of Tsushima, they are collectively within the borders of the Iki–Tsushima Quasi-National Park.

The Battle of Tsushima (Russian: Цусимское сражение, Tsusimskoye srazheniye, Japanese: 日本海海戦, Nihonkai kaisen) was the final naval battle of the Russo-Japanese War, fought on 27–28 May 1905 in the Tsushima Strait. A devastating defeat for the Imperial Russian Navy, the battle was the only decisive engagement ever fought between modern steel battleship fleets and the first in which wireless telegraphy (radio) played a critically important role. The battle was described by contemporary Sir George Clarke as "by far the greatest and the most important naval event since Trafalgar". The battle is also known in Japan as the Battle of the Sea of Japan.

The battle involved the Japanese Combined Fleet under Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō and the Russian Second Pacific Squadron under Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky, which had sailed over seven months and 18,000 nautical miles (33,000 km) from the Baltic Sea. The Russians hoped to reach Vladivostok and establish naval control of the Far East in order to relieve the Imperial Russian Army in Manchuria. The Russian fleet had a large advantage in the number of battleships, but was overall older and slower than the Japanese fleet, and outnumbered nearly three to one in total hulls. The Russians were sighted in the early morning on 27 May, and the battle began in the afternoon. Rozhestvensky was wounded and knocked unconscious in the initial action, and four of his battleships were sunk by sunset. At night, Japanese destroyers and torpedo boats attacked the remaining ships, and Admiral Nikolai Nebogatov surrendered in the morning of 28 May.