Kitadaitōjima (北大東島), also spelled as Kita Daitō, Kita-Daitō-shima, and Kitadaitō, is the northernmost island in the Daitō Islands group, located in the Philippine Sea southeast of Okinawa, Japan.
Kitadaitōjima is a relatively isolated coralline island, located approximately 9 kilometres (4.9 nmi) north of Minamidaitōjima, the largest island of the archipelago, and 360 kilometres (190 nmi) from Naha, Okinawa.
It is the most likely that their first sighting was by the Spanish navigator Bernardo de la Torre in 1543, in between 25 September and 2 October, during his abortive attempt to reach New Spain from the Philippines with the San Juan de Letran.
There is little doubt that Minamidaitōjima and Kitadaitōjima were again sighted by the Spanish on 28 July 1587, by Pedro de Unamuno who named them Islas sin Probecho (Useless Islands).
In 1900, a team of pioneers from Hachijōjima, an island located 287 kilometres (178 mi) south of Tokyo led by Tamaoki Han'emon (1838 – 1910), who had pioneered settlement on Minamidaitōjima, became the first human inhabitants of the islands, and started the cultivation of sugar cane from 1903.
During this period until World War II, Kitadaitōjima was owned in its entirety by Dai Nippon Sugar (now Dai Nippon Meiji Sugar), which also operated mines for the extraction of guano for use in fertilizer.