Diaoyutai Islands (Senkaku Shoto)

The Diaoyutai Islands are located 200 km ENE of Taibei, capitol of Taiwan. Diaoyutai means "fishing platform" in Chinese. I happened to take a photo of Diaoyutai Is. so I thought I might make this webpage.

[Photo: Diaoyutai Islands from plane. ]

Photo: we see light beaches and dark vegetation. Elevations of highest points of islands : Diaoyutai 383 m, Beixiaodao 135 m, Nanxiaodao 149 m, Chongbeiyan 28 m[Info from Taiwan Gov't 1:50000 topo maps. ] north is up; scale in km. Please turn this picture upside down for original from-plane viewing feeling; taken 3 July 1994.

weiyun@mac.com said on Sep 11 2000:

It looked like a satellite photo to me.

Thanks for the compliment, I just thought I could save some bits by removing the blue sea color etc. and making it black and white.

So how did you take it? Was it off a regular commercial jet? It looked as if it was taken without any side angle. Did you stick your camera out the window? ;)

Yup, regular flight Taibei to Tokyo, altitude 11300 m [37000 ft]. I've just turned it upside down from the real way it looks when I took it out the window, apparently in an attempt to make a north=up map... and since I had already scribbled on the photo, I didn't want to turn it back right side up lest the words be upside down. Perhaps the plane was in a slight turn allowing me to take this almost straight down photo.

Aviation map

Diaoyutai is at 123 deg 30 min E, 25 deg 40 min N. To know where Diaoyutai is when on an airplane, you need an aviation map. You might ask the pilot if he has an old map to spare. They might even let you pose for pictures. that day we took route R583 past Diaoyutai.

The maps are made by Jeppesen, who don't give out samples.

Politics

Taiwan government maps place Diaoyutai in Toucheng Township, Yilan County, which is postal code 261. However the Taiwan Postal Administration gives it its own postal code of 290. Anyway, if the postman went there, the Japanese police would arrest him: Diaoyutai is disputed between Japan, Taiwan, and China.

Diaoyutai is/was also spelled Tiaoyutai, Tiauyutai, Senkaku...

Dan Jacobson

Last modified: 2006-05-12 02:21:41 +0800