On Okinawa Island, each village formed before the modern times has at least one ritual area called Kami-Asagi or Tun. Though it is often said that we must understand Utaki and Kami-Asagi/Tun as the nucleus of a village in order to grasp the construction of the community on Okinawa Island, earlier studies on their positional relation have been partial. In this paper, as the foundation of the study of Kami-Asagi and Tun, after visiting all the villages on Okinawa Island that have Kami-Asagi/Tun, we clarified their conditions classifying their positional relation to community and examining their present use.
