Tanegashima is located about 40km south of Cape Sata, the southernmost tip of Kyushu. It extends for 58 km in a north-south direction and is characterized by a hilly area that acts as a backbone, with peaks that do not exceed 300 meters of altitude. The climate is mainly influenced by the presence of a strong current, called kuroshio, and by the wind, which in the rainy period gives rise to typhoons, the most dangerous of which occur in the north-western point of the island during the winter. Tanegashima, as already mentioned, is in the midst of the kuroshio current (“black current”), thanks to which the Nanban trade between Japan and China took place. Numerous archaeological sites have been discovered on the island, most of which in the second half of the 1990s, moved back the chronological line of the origins of Japanese civilization and culture, attracting the attention of archaeologists and scholars from all over the world. It starts from Kyu-sekki (up to 14,000 BC), a period in which the oldest trace of human life in Japan was found on the island (dating back to about 35,000 years ago).
The subsequent period, Jomon (14000 BC - 400 BC), is characterized by a heterogeneity of peoples and cultures throughout the Japanese territory, united by the use of certain techniques, in particular the production and processing technique of ceramics. The oldest trace of this period on the island was found in the ruins of Okunonita and Onigano, in the second the first site of dwellings from the early Jomon period was found. The construction typology was that of the tateana-shiki ("pit house"), which, thanks to its circular shape and the development that half took place below the ground, was able to withstand the strong winds that affected (and still) the island during the winter. There is some reference to the Yayoi period (400 BC - 250 BC), although Tanegashima, unlike the Japanese mainland, did not present tombs or mounds for the dead but real cemeteries on the coastal dunes, closer to the Kofun period (250 BC - 592 AD).
For centuries Tanegashima has been a fundamental point for the Japanese economy, especially as regards the Nanban trade, between the Japanese country and China. This was favored by the natural layout of the island, positioned exactly in the center of the kuroshio current, the second strongest ocean current in the world. In addition to the Nanban market, moreover, Tanegashima had a strong link with the Miyazaki prefecture, as far as internal trade was concerned, with ships that landed on the island weekly through the then-north port, identified in the old port of Urada. The importance of this natural element on the island was highlighted in particular in the city of Nishinoomote, through what was baptized as kuroshio-art, characterized by the composition of real figures made up of "trails" of pieces of wood.
If in the north the kuroshio current represented a resource for both Japan and Tanegashima, in the south it was the protagonist of an episode that has inevitably influenced and characterized the resident society over the years. On 23 September 1543, in fact, a strong storm wrecked a large Chinese ship, whose crew included two members of Portuguese nationality. The population of the island had a reaction of inclusion rather than repulsion towards them, showing curiosity and revisiting in particular the only unknown objects that the two Portuguese had with them, arquebuses, since then renamed Tanegashima-teppo. From this moment on, the link between Tanegashima and Portugal intensified, concretizing specifically with the twinning between the city of Nishinoomote and Vila do Bispo, a municipality that gave birth to Fernão Mendes Pinto (one of the Portuguese who arrived on the island in 1543) and with the donation by Portugal of a statue exhibited at the Osaka Expo in 1970, now located in the port of Nishinoomote in the park of Nippominato. Over the years the island has always placed itself in a welcoming and hospitable way towards foreigners, almost seeking contact with cultures diametrically opposed to its own. An example is the daily habit of surfing, a sport brought to the island by the Americans which has been a real cult by the local population, also given the predisposition of the island which facilitates rapid passages from one side to the other.