Cape Shionomisaki

Southernmost point of Honshu, where the warm Kuroshio Current flows close enough to shore to support some of the world's most northerly coral communities. The cape once was a separate island, pushed up from the seafloor by seismic activity and still rising about five centimeters a year as sand gradually connects it to the mainland. The 1878 Shionomisaki Lighthouse, designed by British engineer Richard Henry Brunton, guards the rocky point. A Turkish memorial nearby marks an 1890 shipwreck in which 587 people died and 69 survivors were cared for by local villagers, a story still remembered in both countries.