Ikei-jima

Ikei is a limestone shelf about 2 km long, mostly flat at around 25 m and ringed by sea cliffs about 20 m high except on the east side. Its single village faces south toward the bridge, and the rest of the island is farmland reorganized into neat blocks after land improvement began in 1979. Sugarcane is the main crop, and Uruma's tourism association also points to the island's golden sweet potato. A fixed-net fishery off the north-west coast is known for bonito.

Uruma calls the Nakabaru site the largest pit-dwelling site in the prefecture. It became a national historic site in 1986, and the city has reconstructed part of a village that stood here about 2,500 years ago. At the south-west tip the Ikei gusuku stands on a limestone stack that was an island of its own until a sandbar joined it to Ikei. Villagers once climbed about 150 stone steps down the cliff to the Innagaa spring for their water, and a ryuka verse survives in which a young woman wonders whether to marry onto an island with such a climb.

The old school became the Okinawa Ikei campus of N High School in 2016. Uruma's tourism association warns that the currents around Ikei run fast, and the Fuukijiru channel between Ikei and Miyagi is known for its strong tidal flow.