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 Japan| Facts & Figures |
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| Emperor: Akihito (1989) Prime Minister: Yukio Hatoyama
(2009) Land area: 152,411 sq mi (394,744 sq km);
total area: 145,882 sq mi (377,835 sq km) Population (2009 est.): 127,078,679
(growth rate: -0.1%); birth rate: 7.6/1000; infant mortality rate:
2.8/1000; life expectancy: 82.1; density per sq km: 339
Capital and largest city (2003 est.):
Tokyo, 35,327,000 (metro. area), 8,483,050
(city proper) Other large cities: Yokohama,
3,494,900 (part of Tokyo metro. area); Osaka, 11,286,000 (metro.
area), 2,597,000 (city proper); Nagoya, 2,189,700; Sapporo,
1,848,000; Kobe, 1,529,900 (part of Osaka metro. area); Kyoto,
1,470,600 (part of Osaka metro. area); Fukuoka, 1,368,900; Kawasaki,
1,276,200 (part of Tokyo metro. area); Hiroshima, 1,132,700 Monetary unit: Yen More Facts & Figures |
GeographyAn archipelago in the Pacific, Japan is
separated from the east coast of Asia by the Sea of Japan. It is
approximately the size of Montana. Japan's four main islands are Honshu,
Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku. The Ryukyu chain to the southwest was
U.S.-occupied from 1945 to 1972, when it reverted to Japanese control, and
the Kurils to the northeast are Russian-occupied.
GovernmentConstitutional monarchy with a parliamentary
government.
HistoryLegend attributes the creation of Japan to the
sun goddess, from whom the emperors were descended. The first of them was
Jimmu, supposed to have ascended the throne in 660
B.C.
, a tradition that constituted official doctrine
until 1945.
Recorded Japanese history begins in
approximately
A.D.
400, when the Yamato clan,
eventually based in Kyoto, managed to gain control of other family groups
in central and western Japan. Contact with Korea introduced Buddhism to
Japan at about this time. Through the 700s Japan was much influenced by
China, and the Yamato clan set up an imperial court similar to that of
China. In the ensuing centuries, the authority of the imperial court was
undermined as powerful gentry families vied for control.
At the same time, warrior clans were rising to
prominence as a distinct class known as samurai. In 1192, the Minamoto
clan set up a military government under their leader, Yoritomo. He was
designated shogun (military dictator). For the following 700 years,
shoguns from a succession of clans ruled in Japan, while the imperial
court existed in relative obscurity.
First contact with the West came in about 1542,
when a Portuguese ship off course arrived in Japanese waters. Portuguese
traders, Jesuit missionaries, and Spanish, Dutch, and English traders
followed. Suspicious of Christianity and of Portuguese support of a local
Japanese revolt, the shoguns of the Tokugawa period (1603–1867)
prohibited all trade with foreign countries; only a Dutch trading post at
Nagasaki was permitted. Western attempts to renew trading relations failed
until 1853, when Commodore Matthew Perry sailed an American fleet into
Tokyo Bay. Trade with the West was forced upon Japan under terms less than
favorable to the Japanese. Strife caused by these actions brought down the
feudal world of the shoguns. In 1868, the emperor Meiji came to the
throne, and the shogun system was abolished.
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