It reads すおうおおしまちょう — Suo-oshima Cho. This is one of the harder names in the country: small municipalities are exactly where Japan's nandoku chimei (難読地名, "hard-to-read place names") live.
This place is one of 1,651 in Chimei, our Japan city game. Read the kanji, then pin it on the map.
Play Chimei →Every dot is one of Japan's 1,651 municipalities, plotted at its real coordinates. Suo-oshima is marked in red.
Measured as real great-circle distance from Suo-oshima.
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周防大島町 is read すおうおおしまちょう (Suo-oshima Cho). It is a town in Yamaguchi Prefecture.
町 means "town" and is read chō / machi. A town. 町 is read either chō or machi — which one is local convention, and it varies by region. This is one of the classic traps in Japanese place names.
Suo-oshima has a population of 14,605 across 138 km², making it the 1004th largest of Japan's 1,651 municipalities and the 14th largest of the 19 in Yamaguchi.
The closest municipalities to Suo-oshima are Yanai Shi (8 km), Hirao Cho (11 km), Kaminoseki Cho (14 km).