According to the Kojiki, Izanagi and Izanami created eight large islands.
These islands are traditionally called Ōyashima, meaning the “Great Eight Islands.” In the creation myth, the divine couple first produced Awaji, followed by Shikoku, the Oki Islands, Kyūshū, Iki, Tsushima, Sado, and Yamato, which is identified with modern Honshu.
The sequence describes a mythic geography rather than a complete map of present-day Japan. Hokkaido and the Ryukyu Islands are not included among the eight because they were outside the geographic world represented in the Kojiki’s account. The story later adds six smaller island groups.
The number eight also has a broader symbolic force in Japanese tradition: it can suggest abundance or “many,” not merely a strict numerical count. That is why Ōyashima can be understood both as the land of eight major islands and as a poetic name for the Japanese archipelago.