Volcano Islands uninhabited. The first recorded sighting by Europeans was in October 1543 by Spanish navigator Bernardo de la Torre on board of carrack "San Juan de Letrán" when trying to return from Sarangani to New Spain. Iwo Jima was charted as Sufre, the old Spanish term for sulphur. The islands were uninhabited until 1889, when the two northern islands were settled by Japanese settlers from the Izu Islands. They were annexed by Japan in 1891. The population was about 1,100 in 1939, distributed among five settlements: Higashi, Minami, Nishi, Kita and Motoyama (meaning "East", "South", "West", "North" and "Mountain of Origin",
Japanese expatriates in the Solomon Islands Japanese expatriates in the Solomon Islands A small, resident expatriate community of Japanese nationals was present in Solomon Islands from the 1970s onwards. Japanese nationals in Solomon Islands are usually employees of fishing corporations that had established branch companies in the country. The majority of them are fishermen from the Miyako Islands in the Ryukyu Islands, as well as a few Japanese mainlanders. The Japanese Fisheries Corporation ("Taiyo Gyogyo") expressed interests in fishery activities in the South Pacific nations from the late 1960s onwards, which included the Solomon Islands archipelago which was still under British rule. The Taiyo Gyogyo carried