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",
Smith Volcano Smith Volcano is one of the probably five Pleistocene-to-Holocene volcanic centers on Babuyan Island (also known as Babuyan de Claro Island) with Smith, the youngest volcano on the island. The largest on the island is Babuyan Claro (also known as "Mt. Pangasun"), an active stratovolcano with two well-preserved summit craters in diameter, located in the center of the island. Babuyan Claro is about peak-to-peak southeast of Smith Volcano, which is the north-westernmost summit on the triangular-shaped island. Smith Volcano has erupted six times, the last of which was in 1924. A team of volcanologists from the Philippine Institute of Volcanology