[4] Out of 22.78 km2 land of Ie, approximately a third, or 8.02 km2 is occupied by Ie Shima Airfield, a training facility, managed by the United States Marine Corps.

Ernie Pyle (1900 – 1945), a popular World War II-era American journalist and winner of the 1944 Pulitzer Prize was killed in Ie on April 18, 1945.

Life in the village was hard after World War II; little housing remained on the island, and prewar property boundaries were difficult or impossible to determine.

Residents in the immediate post-war period lived in homes made of scavenged materials and relied on American rations for food.

The village is also connected to the prefectural capital of Naha via a one-hour high-speed ferry from the Port of Tomari.