Chūgoku literally means "middle country", but the origin of the name is unclear. Historically, Japan was divided into a number ofprovinces calledkoku, which were in turn classified according to both their power and their distances from the administrative center inKansai. Under the latter classification, most provinces are divided into "near countries" (近国,kingoku), "middle countries" (中国,chūgoku), and "far countries" (遠国,ongoku). Therefore, one explanation is thatChūgoku was originally used to refer to the collection of "middle countries" to the west of the capital. However, only five (fewer than half) of the provinces normally considered part of Chūgoku region were in fact classified as middle countries, and the term never applied to the many middle countries to the east of Kansai. Therefore, an alternative explanation is thatChūgoku referred to provinces between Kansai andKyūshū, which was historically important as the link between Japan and mainland Asia.
Historically,Chūgoku referred to the 16 provinces ofSan'indō (山陰道) andSan'yōdō (山陽道), which led to the region's alternative name described below. However, because some of the easternmost provinces were later subsumed into prefectures based primarily in Kansai, those areas are, strictly speaking, not part of the Chūgoku region in modern usage.
InJapanese, the characters中国 and the readingChūgoku are also used to mean "China". The samecharacters are used inChinese to refer to China, but pronouncedZhōngguó inMandarin, lit. "Middle Kingdom" or "Middle Country" (Wade Giles:Chung1-kuo2). It is similar to the use of theWest Country in English for a region of England. However, before the end of theSecond World War, China was more commonly calledshina (支那/シナ; which shares the same etymology of the word "China" in English) in order to avoid confusing the Chūgoku region. Due to the extensive use of this word during theSino-Japanese War, the termshina has become anoffensive word and was abandoned thereafter, andChūgoku has since then been used instead ofshina. In modern times, primarily in the tourism industry, for the same purpose, the Chūgoku region is also called the "San'in‐San'yō region".San'in ("yin of themountains") is the northern part facing theSea of Japan.San'yō ("yang of the mountains") is the southern part facing theSeto Inland Sea. These names were created usingtheyin andyang‐based place‐naming scheme.
The city ofHiroshima, the "capital" of the Chūgoku region, was rebuilt afterbeing destroyed by anatomic bomb in 1945, and is now an industrial metropolis of more than one million people.
The Chūgoku region is characterized by irregular rolling hills and limited plain areas and is divided into two distinct parts by mountains running east and west through its center.
The two largest metropolitan areas in Chūgoku region areHiroshima andOkayama whose total population of the two metropolitan areas amount to 2.808 million as of 2020.[5][6]TheirUrban Employment Area amounts to around 3 million people for the Chūgoku region. The rest of Chūgoku region is sparsely populated and very rural.
Per Japanese census data,[7][8] the Chūgoku region as a whole has experienced a steady population decline since 1992, with some prefectures within the region experiencing declines since 1985. The region reached a peak population of roughly 7.8 million in 1991.
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