Ibaraki, Japan

Ibaraki, Japan: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Ibaraki is a landing point for submarine cables located in Ibaraki Prefecture, in the Kantō region of Honshu, Japan. The prefecture faces the Pacific Ocean to the east, providing the coastal access that makes it suitable for submarine cable infrastructure. One submarine cable lands at Ibaraki, connecting it to Japan's broader domestic cable network.

The single cable landing here, the Japan Information Highway (JIH), operates as a domestic connection, linking points within Japan rather than extending to international destinations. This makes Ibaraki a node in Japan's internal submarine cable architecture rather than an intercontinental gateway. Japan as a whole hosts 51 submarine cables across 68 landing points, and Ibaraki represents one of the country's domestically oriented termination sites.

Cables Landing at Ibaraki

The Japan Information Highway (JIH) is the sole submarine cable landing at Ibaraki. The cable has a length of 5,150 kilometres and reached its ready-for-service (RFS) date in 1999. All endpoints on the JIH are located within Japan, confirming its role as a domestic submarine cable system. At 5,150 km, it is a substantial cable by length, running close to the Japanese average cable length of 5,696 km recorded across the country's submarine cable network.

Regional Context

Among Japan's submarine cable landing points, Ibaraki hosts fewer cables than the country's most connected sites. Shima leads with 12 cables, followed by Maruyama with 9 and Chikura with 8, while Hachijo, Minamiboso, and Naha each host 4. With a single cable, Ibaraki ranks in the top 68 percent of Japan's 68 landing points by cable count, placing it in the lower tier of the country's landing point hierarchy but still within the active network of termination sites.

Network Role

Ibaraki functions as a single-cable terminus within Japan's domestic submarine cable graph. The Japan Information Highway, landing here since 1999, provides intra-national connectivity, enabling data transmission between points within Japan via an undersea route rather than purely terrestrial paths. This is consistent with Japan's broader use of submarine cables to interconnect its island geography and extended coastline.

As a single-cable landing point serving a domestic corridor, Ibaraki plays a focused role compared to multi-cable hubs elsewhere in Japan. Its presence in the national network illustrates that submarine cable infrastructure in Japan extends beyond major international gateways to include specialised domestic nodes that support internal connectivity across the archipelago.