Geography of Japan

is an archipelagic country comprising a stratovolcanic archipelago over along the Pacific coast of East Asia. It consists of 14,125 islands. The five main islands are Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku, and Okinawa. The other 14,120 islands are classified as "remote islands" by the Japanese government. The Ryukyu Islands and Nanpō Islands are south and east of the main islands.
The territory covers. It is the fourth-largest island country in the world and the largest island country in East Asia. The country has the 6th longest coastline at and the 8th largest Exclusive Economic Zone of in the world.
The terrain is mostly rugged and mountainous, with 66% forest. The population is clustered in urban areas along the coast, plains, and valleys. Japan is located in the northwestern Ring of Fire on multiple tectonic plates. East of the Japanese archipelago are three oceanic trenches. The Japan Trench is created as the oceanic Pacific Plate subducts beneath the continental Okhotsk Plate. The continuous subduction process causes frequent earthquakes, tsunamis, and stratovolcanoes. The islands are also affected by typhoons. The subduction plates have pulled the Japanese archipelago eastward, created the Sea of Japan, and separated it from the Asian continent by back-arc spreading 15 million years ago.
The climate varies from humid continental in the north to humid subtropical and tropical rainforests in the south. These differences in climate and landscape have allowed the development of a diverse flora and fauna, with some rare endemic species, especially in the Ogasawara Islands.
Japan extends from 20° to 45° north latitude and from 122° to 153° east longitude. Japan is surrounded by seas. To the north, the Sea of Okhotsk separates it from the Russian Far East; to the west, the Sea of Japan separates it from the Korean Peninsula; to the southwest, the East China Sea separates the Ryukyu Islands from China and Taiwan; to the east is the Pacific Ocean.
The Japanese archipelago is over long in a north-to-southwardly direction from the Sea of Okhotsk to the Philippine Sea in the Pacific Ocean. It is narrow, and no point in Japan is more than from the sea. In 2023, a government recount of the islands with digital maps increased the total from 6,852 to 14,125 islands. The five main islands are Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa. Three of the four major islands are separated by narrow straits of the Seto Inland Sea and form a natural entity. The 6,847 smaller islands are called remote islands. This includes the Bonin Islands, Daitō Islands, Minami-Tori-shima, Okinotorishima, the Ryukyu Islands, the Volcano Islands, Nansei Islands, and the Nanpō Islands, as well as numerous islets, of which 430 are inhabited. The Senkaku Islands are administered by Japan but disputed by China. This excludes the disputed Northern Territories and Liancourt Rocks. In total, as of 2021, Japan's territory is, of which is land and is water. Japan has the sixth longest coastline in the world. It is the largest island country in East Asia and the fourth largest island country in the world.
Because of Japan's many far-flung outlying islands and long coastline, the country has extensive marine life and mineral resources in the ocean. The Exclusive Economic Zone of Japan covers and is the 8th largest in the world. It is more than 11 times the land area of the country. The Exclusive Economic Zone stretches from the baseline out to from its coast. Its territorial sea is, but between in the international straits—La Pérouse, Tsugaru Strait, Ōsumi, and Tsushima Strait.
Japan has a population of 126 million as of 2019. It is the 11th most populous country in the world and the second most populous island country. 81% of the population lives on Honshu, 10% on Kyushu, 4.2% on Hokkaido, 3% on Shikoku, 1.1% in Okinawa Prefecture, and 0.7% on other Japanese islands such as the Nanpō Islands.

Map of Japan

Japan is formally divided into eight regions, from northeast to southwest :

Each region contains several prefectures, except the Hokkaido region, which comprises only Hokkaido Prefecture.
The regions are not official administrative units but have been traditionally used as the regional division of Japan in a number of contexts. For example, maps and geography textbooks divide Japan into the eight regions; weather reports usually give the weather by region; and many businesses and institutions use their home region as part of their name. While Japan has eight High Courts, their jurisdictions do not correspond with the eight regions.

Composition, topography and geography

About 73% of Japan is mountainous, with a mountain range running through each of the main islands. Japan's highest mountain is Mount Fuji, with an elevation of. Japan's forest cover rate is 68.55% since the mountains are heavily forested. The only other developed nations with such a high forest cover percentage are Finland and Sweden.
Since there is little level ground, many hills and mountainsides at lower elevations around towns and cities are often cultivated. As Japan is situated in a volcanic zone along the Pacific deeps, frequent low-intensity earth tremors and occasional volcanic activity are felt throughout the islands. Destructive earthquakes occur several times a century. Hot springs are numerous and have been exploited by the leisure industry.
The Geospatial Information Authority of Japan measures Japan's territory annually in order to continuously grasp the state of the national land. As of July 1, 2021, Japan's territory is. It increases in area due to volcanic eruptions such as Nishinoshima, the natural expansion of the islands, and land reclamation.
This table shows land use in 2002.

Forest	Agricultural land	Residential area	Water surface, rivers, waterways	Roads	Wilderness	Other
66.4%	12.8%	4.8%	3.6%	3.4%	0.7%	8.3%

Location

The Japanese archipelago is relatively far away from the Asian continent. Kyushu is closest to the southernmost point of the Korean peninsula, with a distance of, which is almost six times farther away than from England to France across the English Channel. Thus, historically, Kyushu was the gateway between Asia and Japan. China is separated by of sea from Japan's big main islands. Hokkaido is near Sakhalin, which was occupied by Japan from 1905 to 1945. Most of the population lives on the Pacific coast of Honshū. The west coast facing the Sea of Japan is less densely populated.
The Japanese archipelago has been difficult to reach since ancient history. During the Paleolithic period around 20,000 BCE, at the height of the Last Glacial Maximum, there was a land bridge between Hokkaido and Sakhalin that linked Japan with the Asian continent. The land bridge disappeared when sea levels rose in the Jōmon period around 10,000 BCE.
Japan's remote location, surrounded by vast seas, rugged, mountainous terrain, and steep rivers, makes it secure against invaders and uncontrolled migration from the Asian continent. The Japanese can close their civilization with an isolationist foreign policy. During the Edo period, the Tokugawa Shogunate enforced the Sakoku policy, which prohibited most foreign contact and trade from 1641 to 1853. In modern times, the inflow of people is managed via seaports and airports. Thus, Japan is fairly insulated from continental issues.
Throughout history, Japan has never been fully invaded or colonized by other countries. The Mongols tried to invade Japan twice and failed in 1274 and 1281. Japan capitulated only once after nuclear attacks in World War II. At the time, Japan did not have nuclear technology. The insular geography is a major factor in the isolationist, semi-open, and expansionist periods of Japanese history.

Mountains and volcanoes

The mountainous islands of the Japanese archipelago form a crescent off the eastern coast of Asia. They are separated from the continent by the Sea of Japan, which serves as a protective barrier. Japan has 108 active volcanoes because of active plate tectonics in the Ring of Fire.
Around 15 million years ago, the volcanic shoreline of the Asian continent was pushed out into a series of volcanic island arcs. This created the "back-arc basins" known as the Sea of Japan and Sea of Okhotsk with the formal shaping of the Japanese archipelago. The archipelago also has summits on mountain ridges that were uplifted near the outer edge of the continental shelf. About 73 percent of Japan's area is mountainous, and scattered plains and intermontane basins cover only about 27 percent. A long chain of mountains runs down the middle of the archipelago, dividing it into two halves: the "face", facing the Pacific Ocean, and the "back", toward the Sea of Japan. On the Pacific side are steep mountains 1,500 to 3,000 meters high, with deep valleys and gorges.
Central Japan is marked by the convergence of the three mountain chains—the Hida, Kiso, and Akaishi mountains—that form the Japanese Alps, several of whose peaks are higher than. The highest point in the Japanese Alps is Mount Kita at. The highest point in the country is Mount Fuji, a volcano dormant since 1707 that rises to above sea level in Shizuoka Prefecture. On the Sea of Japan side are plateaus and low mountain districts, with altitudes of 500 to 1,500 meters.

Plains

There are three major plains in central Honshū. The largest is the Kantō Plain, which covers in the Kantō region. The capital Tokyo and the largest metropolitan population are located there. The second largest plain in Honshū is the Nōbi Plain, with the third-most-populous urban area being Nagoya. The third-largest plain in Honshū is the Osaka Plain, which covers in the Kinki region. It features the second-largest urban area of Osaka. Osaka and Nagoya extend inland from their bays until they reach steep mountains. The Osaka Plain is connected with Kyoto and Nara. Kyoto is located in the Yamashiro Basin and Nara is in the Nara Basin.
The Kantō Plain, Osaka Plain, and Nōbi Plain are the most important economic, political, and cultural areas of Japan. These plains had the largest agricultural production and large bays with ports for fishing and trade. This made them the largest population centers. Kyoto and Nara are the ancient capitals and cultural heart of Japan. The Kantō Plain became Japan's center of power because it is the largest plain with a central location, and historically, it had the most agricultural production that could be taxed. The Tokugawa Shogunate established a bakufu in Edo in 1603. This evolved into the capital of Tokyo by 1868.
Hokkaido has multiple plains, such as the Ishikari Plain, Tokachi Plain, the Kushiro Plain, the largest wetland in Japan, and the Sarobetsu Plain. There are many farms that produce a plethora of agricultural products. The average farm size in Hokkaido was 26 hectares per farmer in 2013. That is nearly 11 times larger than the national average of 2.4 hectares. This made Hokkaido the most agriculturally rich prefecture in Japan. Nearly one-fourth of Japan's arable land and 22% of Japan's forests are in Hokkaido.
Another important plain is the Sendai Plain around the city of Sendai in northeastern Honshū. Many of these plains are along the coast, and their areas have been increased by land reclamation throughout recorded history.