Japan

Japan is a country in Asia. It is made of islands. Four of them are large, and the biggest is one of the largest islands in the world. The islands are on the east Asian coast in the western part of the Pacific Ocean.

Japanese people call their country "Nihon" or "Nippon", which means "the origin of the sun".

1 History
2 Geography
3 Subdivisons
4 See also

[edit] History

The earliest records on Japan are from Chinese history. One of those records said there were many small countries which had wars between them and later a country, ruled by a queen, became the strongest and peace came.

Japan began to write its own history after the 5th and 6th centuries, when Korea and China taught Japan about the Chinese writing system. Japan's neighbours also showed them the ways of Buddhism. The Japanese changed Buddhism in many ways, starting ideas such as Zen.

In the ancient and the Middle Ages, lots of new cultural ideas were brought to Japan from China, but their relations and contact became weaker as time passed. In the late 13th century, Mongolians from China tried to invade Japan twice, but they could not. The samurai and shogun of Medieval Japan are similar to knights and lords in Medieval Europe .

Japan had contacts with the Europeans for a little while in the 16th century. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to visit Japan. Later, the Spanish, English and Dutch came to trade. Also, they brought Christianity. Japan's leaders welcomed them at first, but later they knew that these Europeans conquered many places in the world and suspected they could conquer Japan too. So the Japanese did not let the Europeans come into Japan anymore, except in a small area in Nagasaki city. Only Chinese, Korean and Dutch were allowed to visit Japan finally and their activities in Japan were under the close control of the Japanese government. Japan was opened again in 1854 by Matthew Perry, when the Americans wanted to let their whaling ships use Japanese ports.

This new contact with Europeans and Americans changed many ways of Japanese life. The Meiji Restoration of 1868 stopped some old ways and added many new ones. Japan became a very powerful nation and tried to invade all its neighbours. It invaded and annexed the Korean, Okinawan, and Ryukyu Kingdoms. It had two wars with China: the First Sino-Japanese War and the Second Sino-Japanese War, which grew to become a part of World War 2).

In 1941 Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, a naval base of the United States and destroyed or damaged many ships and airplanes. This started the United States' involvement in World War 2. American and Japanese forces fought each other in the Pacific. America began to win, and started dropping bombs on Japanese cities. The United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan and killed 130,000 Japanese citizens in just a few seconds. Soon after this the Soviet Union began to fight against Japan and the Japanese army in Manchuria lost. Japan surrendered and gave up all the places it took from other countries, accepting the Potsdam Proclamation. The United States occupied Japan and forced it to write a new constitution, in which they promised to never go to war again.

Japan was hurt very much after the atomic bombs, but soon it grew strong again. They did not try to make a strong military, but a strong economy. Because of this, they became very rich. The United States put their military bases in Japan and has been Japan's friend for the last 50 years. But the bases in Okinawa cause problems between the two countries today.

[edit] Geography

Japan is a group of islands in the Western Pacific, off the coast of China. The four largest islands are Honshu, Hokkaido, Shikoku, and Kyushu, and there are about 3,000 smaller islands in the chain. Japan is separated from the Asian continent by the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea. Honshu, meaning Mainland in Japanese language is the largest island; to the north is Hokkaido, Kyushu is to the west of Honshu, and Shikoku is south of the western part of Honshu.

On the central part of Japan there are mountains. Most of mountains are volcanoes. Many earthquakes occur in Japan. The recent big earthquake happened in 1995 near to Kobe.

90% of the people living in Japan live in 10% of the land, near the coast. Over 10 cities have over a million population. The biggest city in Japan is Tokyo, its capital. The biggest cities in Japan are Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya, Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Kitakyushu, Sendai and Sapporo. In Japan there are eight regions. Hokkaido, Tohoku, Kanto, Chubu, Kansai, Chugoku, Shukoku and Kyushu.

Important international airports in Japan are Narita, serving as Tokyo's major airport and Kansai International Airport near Osaka, serving as the main airport for the Kansai region.

For moving around Japan, airplanes, trains and buses are mainly used for the public transportation. The Shinkansen is one of the fastest trains in the world and connects most of the biggest cities in Honshu and Kyushu.