Shikoku is the smallest of Japan’s four main islands. The four are Honshu (the big island with Tokyo), Hokkaido in the north, Kyushu in the south-west, and Shikoku, which sits south of Honshu across a narrow inland sea. People know it for mountains, citrus, and a long temple walk that visits eighty-eight temples. In Japanese the name means “four provinces,” because old Japan counted four states on that island. It is a place name, so it takes a capital S. Though actually you may also meet Shikoku as the name of a dog breed that started there; that use is borrowed from the island’s name, not a second country. English speakers sometimes mix the four islands up, especially Shikoku and Kyushu, which both lie to the south-west of the main island.

四國（日本四個主島裡最小的一座）