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",
Poor Knights Islands or, that the islands were named for their resemblance to Poor Knight's Pudding, a bread-based dish topped with egg and fried, popular at the time of discovery by Europeans. The chain consists of two large islands (Tawhiti Rahi, the larger at , and Aorangi () to the south), and several smaller islands. Aorangaia and Archway Island lie to the southwest of Aorangi Island, and there is also a group of smaller rocky islets between the two main islands, the largest of which is Motu Kapiti. The Poor Knights Islands are the eroded remnants of a 4-million-year-old rhyolitic volcano that is