Toguchi Beach

On 1 April 1945 American troops came ashore along this coast from Toguchi south to Chatan, unopposed, and took the Yomitan and Kadena airfields by noon. A monument above the Hija River marks the landing. Today the shore is a tidy park with a playground and showers, and the shallow water suits small children.

The rock of Tumai-gusuku, which gives the park its name, was counted among the southern eight views of Okinawa, and young people from Toguchi once practised their songs and dances beneath it. The nearby Mumenbaru site yielded stone coffins and the oldest evidence of burial found in Okinawa. For an hour between high and low tide, three rocks on the beach line up into the shape of a whale shark when seen from the central pavilion.