Kantō region

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Kantō region, Japan.

This article is about the Kantō region of Japan. For other uses, see Kanto (disambiguation).

The Kantō region (関東地方, Kantō-chihō^?) is a geographical area of Honshū, the largest island in Japan. The region encompasses seven prefectures within the Greater Tokyo Area: Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Saitama, Tokyo, Chiba, and Kanagawa. Within its boundaries, slightly more than 40 percent of the land area is the Kantō plain. The rest consists of the hills and mountains that form the land borders.

[edit] Cities

The Kantō region is the most highly developed, urbanized, and industrialized part of Japan. Tokyo and Yokohama form a single industrial complex with a concentration of light and heavy industry along Tokyo Bay. Other major cities in the area include Kawasaki (in Kanagawa Prefecture); Saitama (in Saitama Prefecture); and Chiba (in Chiba Prefecture). Smaller cities, farther away from the coast, house substantial light industry. The average population density reached 1,192 persons per square kilometer in 1991.

[edit] History

Map of Kantō region

The heartland of feudal power during the Kamakura period and again in the Edo period, the Kantō became the center of modern development. Within the Greater Tokyo Area and especially the Tokyo-Yokohama metropolitan area, the Kantō houses not only Japan's seat of government but also the largest group of universities and cultural institutions, the greatest population, and a large industrial zone. Although most of the Kantō plain is used for residential, commercial, or industrial construction, it is still farmed. Rice is the principal crop, although the zone around Tokyo and Yokohama has been landscaped to grow garden produce for the metropolitan market.

A watershed moment of Japan's modern history took place in the late Taisho period: The Great Kantō earthquake of 1923. The quake, which claimed more than 100,000 lives and ravaged the Tokyo and Yokohama areas, occurred at a time when Japan was still reeling from the economic recession in reaction to the high-flying years during World War I.

Operation Coronet, the proposed Allied invasion of Japan during World War II was scheduled to land at the Kantō plain. Most of the United States military bases on the island of Honshū are situated on the Kantō plain. These include Naval Air Facility Atsugi, Yokota Air Base, Yokosuka Naval Base, and Camp Zama.

The name Kantō literally means "East of the Barrier." The name Kantō is nowadays generally considered to mean the region east (東) of the Hakone checkpoint (関所).