Britain subsequently yielded to Japanese claims and colonization of the island, which established two villages at Ōmura (大村) and Ōgimura-Fukurosawa (扇村袋沢村).

After the Surrender of Japan, the United States Armed Forces occupied the islands for two decades, destroying Japanese homes and businesses and only allowing resettlement by the Ōbeikei.

[3] It is sometimes written Chichi Jima[4] or Chichi-jima[5] and is also sometimes incorrectly read as Chichishima or Chichitō, based on other pronunciations of the character for "island".

Some Micronesian tools and carvings have been found on North Iwo Jima and elsewhere in the Bonins,[8] but Chichijima was long uninhabited when it was rediscovered.

[6] Despite the Bonins lying near the northern return route used by the Spanish after , none are recorded landing or charting the islands with any certainty.

[6] The first certain sighting of Chichijima was by the failed 1639 Dutch expedition sent in search of the phantom Islands of Gold and Silver under Matthijs Quast and his lieutenant Abel Tasman.

[6] A Japanese merchant ship carrying mikan (a kind of tangerine) from Arida was blown off course around 10 December 1669 and shipwrecked on Hahajima 72 days later, about 20 February 1670.

The captain dead, the remaining six crew rested, explored, and rebuilt their ship for 52 days and then left (around April 13) for Chichijima.

[12] The shipwrights at Nagasaki were then specially permitted to build an ocean-going junk of the "Chinese type", the Fukkokuju Maru.

Shimaya Ichizaemon was allowed to use it to trade between Nagasaki and Tokyo for four years before being directed to undertake a secret mission to explore and chart the islands with a crew of about 30 in May 1674.

The settlers were initially led by Matteo Mazzaro, an Italian-born British subject,[15] included 13 indigenous Hawaiians (from Oahu), another Briton, two US citizens, and a Dane.

[15] Commodore Matthew C. Perry's flagship USS Susquehanna anchored for three days in Chichijima's harbor on 15 June 1853, on the way to his historic visit to Tokyo Bay to open up the country to western trade.

On 17 January 1862, at Chichijima, Japanese sovereignty over the Ogasawara Islands was proclaimed, following the arrival of an official party from the Tokugawa Shogunate.

[8] The existing inhabitants were allowed to remain,[14] and Savory's authority was acknowledged,[17] Ethnic Japanese gradually outnumbered descendants of the first wave of settlers, whom they referred to as Oubeikei (or Ōbeikei; literally "Westerners").

According to one source: "At the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, an Army force of about 3,700-3,800 men garrisoned Chichi Jima.

Japanese troops and resources from Chichijima were used in reinforcing the strategic point of Iwo Jima before the historic battle that took place there from 19 February to 24 March 1945.

Thirty Japanese soldiers were court-martialled for class "B" war crimes, primarily in connection with the Chichijima incident and four officers (Major Matoba, General Tachibana, Admiral Mori, and Captain Yoshii) were found guilty and hanged.

Many of those who chose to move to the US continued to regularly return to the island, where some ran businesses during the summer tourist season.

The Japanese National Institute of Natural Sciences (NINS) is the umbrella agency maintaining a radio astronomy facility on Chichijima.

The dual-beam VERA array consists of four coordinated radio telescope stations located at Mizusawa, Iriki, Ishigakijima, and Ogasawara.

Chichijima, together with neighbouring Anijima and Ototojima, has been recognised as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports populations of Japanese wood pigeons and Bonin white-eyes.

[38] Eggs are carefully planted in the shore and infant turtles are raised at the facility until they have reached a certain size, at which point they are released into the wild with an identification tag.