IGU Regional Conference, Kraków, Poland 18-22 August 2014 IGU 2014 Book of Abstracts IGU2014 – 0550 Linking the Islands: A Comparison between Japan and the Philippines Boquet Y. Universite de Bourgogne Archipelagic countries often encounter difficulties due to the physical separation between the islands they are made of. In the absence of physical links, land transportation has to deal with maritime transportation, hence creating obstacles to a smooth flow of merchandise and people. This presentation will compare two Asian countries of roughly the same physical size (about 300,000 km 2) and population (Japan 125 million people, Philippines almost 100). Japan has built in the last 40 years many links between its main four islands (Honshu, Hokkaido, Shikoku, Kyushu), either in the form of tunnels or suspended bridges across inter-island straits. The result has been a diminishing role of the inter-island ferries, and a growing isolation of small intermediate islands in Japan’s Inland Sea. In the Philippines, with the lone exception of the San Juanico Bridge linking Samar and Leyte, far from the centre of the country, there are currently no fixed links between the major islands of the country, even if there has been talk in recent months of the construction of a large bridge between Batangas (Luzon) and Puerto Galera (Mindoro) across the Verde Island passage. As a result of the lack of investment in fixed links, maritime inter-island transportation in the Philippines remains a major activity, both for passenger and freight traffic. However, the Philippine government has implemented, at a lower cost, a scheme called the Strong Nautical Highway to facilitate the coordination of ferries and truck or buses movements, and has improved the main land corridors between ports on several islands. .