- Ancient Japan to 1185
- Early modern Japan (1550–1850)
- Japan from 1850 to 1945
Japan
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- What is Japan and where is it located?
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Japan,islandcountry lying off the east coast ofAsia. It consists of a great string of islands in a northeast-southwest arc that stretches for approximately 1,500 miles (2,400 km) through the western NorthPacific Ocean. Nearly the entire land area is taken up by the country’s four main islands; from north to south these areHokkaido (Hokkaidō),Honshu (Honshū),Shikoku, andKyushu (Kyūshū). Honshu is the largest of the four, followed in size by Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku. In addition, there are numerous smaller islands, the major groups of which are theRyukyu (Nansei) Islands (including the island ofOkinawa) to the south and west of Kyushu and theIzu,Bonin (Ogasawara), andVolcano (Kazan) islands to the south and east of central Honshu. The national capital,Tokyo (Tōkyō), in east-central Honshu, is one of the world’s most populous cities.
The Japanese landscape is rugged, with more than four-fifths of the land surface consisting of mountains. There are many active and dormant volcanoes, includingMount Fuji (Fuji-san), which, at an elevation of 12,388 feet (3,776 meters), is Japan’s highest mountain. Abundant precipitation and the generally mild temperatures throughout most of the country have produced a lush vegetation cover and, despite the mountainous terrain and generally poor soils, have made it possible to raise a variety of crops. Japan has a large and, to a great extent, ethnicallyhomogeneous population, which is heavily concentrated in the low-lying areas along the Pacific coast of Honshu.
- Head Of Government:
- Prime Minister: Sanae Takaichi
- Capital:
- Tokyo
- Population:
- (2025 est.) 123,105,000
- Currency Exchange Rate:
- 1 USD equals 157.578 Japanese yen
- Form Of Government:
- constitutional monarchy with a national Diet consisting of two legislative houses (House of Councillors [242]; House of Representatives [475])
- Official Language:
- none1
- Official Religion:
- none
- Official Name:
- Nihon, or Nippon (Japan)
- Total Area (Sq Km):
- 377,975
- Total Area (Sq Mi):
- 145,937
- Monetary Unit:
- yen (¥)
- Population Rank:
- (2025) 11
- Population Projection 2030:
- 120,984,000
- Density: Persons Per Sq Mi:
- (2025) 843.6
- Density: Persons Per Sq Km:
- (2025) 325.7
- Urban-Rural Population:
- Urban: (2018) 91.6%
- Rural: (2018) 8.4%
- Life Expectancy At Birth:
- Male: (2022) 81.1 years
- Female: (2022) 87.1 years
- Literacy: Percentage Of Population Age 15 And Over Literate:
- Male: 100%
- Female: 100%
- Gni (U.S.$ ’000,000):
- (2023) 4,899,335
- Gni Per Capita (U.S.$):
- (2023) 39,350
Complexity and contrast are the keynotes of life in Japan—a country possessing an intricate and ancient cultural tradition yet one that, since 1950, has emerged as one of the world’s most economically and technologically advanced societies. Heavy emphasis is placed on education, and Japan is one of the world’s most literate countries. Tension between old and new is apparent in all phases of Japanese life. A characteristic sensitivity to natural beauty and a concern with form and balance are evident in such cities asKyōto andNara, as well as in Japan’subiquitous gardens. Even in the countryside, however, the impact of rapid Westernization is evident in many aspects of Japanese life. The agricultural regions are characterized by low population densities and well-orderedrice fields and fruit orchards, whereas the industrial and urbanized belt along the Pacific coast of Honshu is noted for its highly concentrated population, heavy industrialization, andenvironmental pollution.
Humans have occupied Japan for tens of thousands of years, but Japan’s recorded history begins only in the 1st centurybce, with mention in Chinese sources. Contact with China and Korea in the early centuriesce brought profound changes to Japan, including theChinese writing system,Buddhism, and many artistic forms from the continent. The first steps at political unification of the country occurred in the late 4th and early 5th centuriesce under theYamato court. A great civilization then developed first atNara in the 8th century and then at Heian-kyō (now Kyōto) from the late 8th to the late 12th century. The seven centuries thereafter were a period of domination by military rulersculminating in near isolation from the outside world from the early 17th to the mid-19th century.
The reopening of the country ushered in contact with the West and a time of unprecedented change. Japan sought to become a modern industrialized nation and pursued the acquisition of a large overseas empire, initially in Korea and China. By late 1941 this latter policy caused direct confrontation with theUnited States and its allies and to defeat inWorld War II (1939–45). Since the war, however, Japan’s spectacular economic growth—one of the greatest of any nation in that period—brought the country to the forefront of the world economy. It now is one of the world’s foremost manufacturing countries and traders of goods and is a global financial leader.
Land
Japan is bounded to the west by theSea of Japan (East Sea), which separates it from the eastern shores ofSouth andNorth Korea and southeasternSiberia (Russia); to the north byLa Perouse (Sōya) Strait, separating it from Russian-heldSakhalin Island, and by theSea of Okhotsk; to the northeast by the southernKuril Islands (sinceWorld War II under Soviet and then Russian administration); to the east and south by the Pacific; and to the southwest by theEast China Sea, which separates it fromChina. The island ofTsushima lies between northwestern Kyushu and southeastern South Korea and defines theKorea Strait on the Korean side and the Tsushima Strait on the Japanese side.
Relief
The mountainous character of the country is the outcome of orogenic (mountain-building) forces largely duringQuaternary time (roughly, the past 2.6 million years), as evidenced by the frequent occurrence of violent earthquakes,volcanic activity, and signs of change in sea levels along the coast. There are no sizable structural plains and peneplains (large land areas leveled by erosion), features that usually occur in more stable regions of the Earth. The mountains are for the most part in a youthful stage of dissection in which steep slopes are incised by dense river-valley networks. Rivers are mostly torrential, and their valleys are accompanied by series of river terraces that are the result of movements in the Earth’s crust, as well as climatic and sea-level changes inHolocene times (i.e., the past 11,700 years). Recent volcanoes arejuxtaposed with old and highly dissected ones. The shores are characterized by elevated and depressed features such as headlands and bays, which display anincipient stage of development.
The mountains are divided into many small land blocks that are separated by lowlands or deep saddles; there is no long or continuous mountain range. These land blocks are the result of intense faulting (movement ofadjacent rock masses along a fracture) and warping (bending of the Earth’s crust); the former process is regarded as dominant. One consequence is that mountain blocks are often bounded by fault scarps and flexure slopes that descend in step formation to the adjacent lowlands.
Coalescing alluvial fans—cone-shaped deposits of alluvium that run together—are formed where rivers emerge from the mountains. When the rivers are large enough to extend their courses to the sea, low deltaic plains develop in front of the fans; this occurs most frequently where the rivers empty into shallow and sheltered bays, as in thedeltas of Kantō (Kwanto), Nōbi, andŌsaka. In most places, however, fan surfaces plunge directly into the sea and are separated by low, sandy beach ridges.
Dissected plains are common. Intense disturbances have caused many former alluvial fans, deltas, and sea bottoms to be substantially uplifted to form flat-topped uplands such as those found in theKantō Plain. Frequently the uplands have been overlain with volcanic ash, as in the Kantō and Tokachi plains.