A Comprehensive Overview Of Japan

A lot of people might only know Japan for all their animated cartoons (anime) and manga (Japanese Comic Books), but Japan has much, much more variety to it. This paper will only cover a select few of those things, but a quick list of them is the location of Japan, the characteristics of Japan’s environment, Japan’s physical and human landscapes, Japan’s Formal, Physical, and Perceptual regions, the history of each of those regions. Their trading exports and imports, their tourism spots, and how they share their technology. Their dependence on the environment, how they have modified their land, and how they are adapting to their land. The last thing to go over will be a surprise topic.

First, where is Japan, and what is it like there? While most of us may think of Japan as being in the Far East, in actuality, it is closer to Alaska than any other state which means it would take less time to fly west to Japan, than to fly east. Japan is in East Asia, it is an island that is directly on the East coast, and its exact coordinates are 36.2 degrees North and 138.2 degrees East.

Japan is not however just one huge island it may have over 146,000 square miles within its borders, but it is made up of over 4000 smaller islands. There are four main islands, they include: the biggest, which is Honshu which is 810 miles long, Hokkaido is the second biggest and is also the farthest North of the four, third largest is Kyushu, Kyushu is also the farthest South of the four islands, and last is Shikoku, which is 7,259 square miles. Japan has a mostly temperate climate with the same four basic seasons as the USA.

For the most part, Japan is incredibly mountainous, and one of their most famous mountains, Mt. Fuji, is an active volcano, although since it has not erupted in a very long time, some people call it dormant. As previously mentioned Japan is made up of over 4000 different islands, but instead of thinking of it as a linear string of islands it is more accurate to call it an archipelago, because instead of 3thinking all the islands being in a row, think of it as one giant piece of land that was chopped up into tiny chunks and spread all around.

Now that we know what it is like in Japan, we can focus on how the country is organized. Formally the Japanese government divides Japan into 8 regions, which are Hokkaido, Tohoku, Kanto, Chubu, Kinki (or Kansai), Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu. Each of these regions has a completely different dialect and set of cultural values, kind of like how Texans speak and believe completely differently from New York, or Minnesota. While Formal regions are good and all, generally they usually are not sorted by usefulness, and that is where the Functional Regions come in. There is only one main functional region called Kanto, but it is quite large scaling in at 12,519 square miles. Kanto specializes in manufacturing and researching some of the most advanced technology on the planet, is also considered by most, the economic center of Japan, and is also highly urbanized and contains one-third of the entire country’s population.

The last type of region to talk about is the Perceptual Region. Just a few include The Far East, The Land of The Rising Sun, and a land of exotic foods. People in the USA sometimes call Asia the Far East because, on our maps here, it shows Asia as being all the way on the right side of the map, but, it is much closer if you travel West. Some people also nickname Japan as The Land of The Rising Sun because from China’s perspective when the sun rises in the East, it looks like it is coming up from Japan. People from America might also call a lot of the foods eaten there exotic, but only because our palettes here are very limited, some examples of food eaten on a regular basis in Japan are Fish eggs, whale meat, raw horse meat, and black sulfur ramen noodles.

Now that we know the regions of Japan, we can figure out what exactly goes on inside of the regions. Japan is pretty busy when it comes to trading, not only do they have quite a few different items that they export, but they also import plenty of raw materials. Some of their exports can include: Motor Vehicles, some of the mainstream companies are Honda, Nissan, and Toyota, Japan also exports electronics, power tools, steel, nonferrous metals, ships, various chemicals, and processed snacks. Japan also imports but mostly it is just a lot of raw materials since their country may have nice scenery and all that, but it is a volcanic island without many raw materials of its own. Some of their imports include oil, coal, iron ore, copper aluminum (or aluminium as the Brits call it), and wood. Japan is also a very popular tourist spot, some of the most popular places are Tokyo city, Kyoto, Osaka, and Nara. As mentioned earlier Kanto is very technologically advanced but the technology Japan orients its research around is not usually focused on consumers, for example, a large majority of their government research funds go towards subjects such as aeronautics, and nuclear power to name a couple. Even still there is something to be said for the fact that you can find almost anything in a vending machine there. Since Japan is an island nation, they tend to eat plenty of seafood, and although they do eat other meats like whale and horse, chicken beef etc. mostly they eat fishes and other marine life. As for their crops, rice is by far the most important one, but they also grow soybeans, wheat, barley, and a huge variety of fruits and vegetables. Even though you can find rice in almost any Japanese meal, only 11.5% of their land is currently farmable. Two of the ways the Japanese have adapted to their environment are: building their large cities very close to the coasts for easy access to fresh seafood, and they have also adapted by learning how to build extremely efficient housing, Japan’s average population density is an astonishing 865 people for 5every square mile. Other ways humans have affected the country are: flattening out large areas for farming and building, there was also a massive pollution problem in Japan for quite a while that is still being corrected, also, the radiation from the two atom bombs the USA dropped is just now starting to dissipate.

Now that the basic overview is over with since you stayed here till the end (hopefully) we can get into something a bit more unusual. Unlike most countries where parents are extremely overprotective (for good reason) in Japan kids generally, start running errands across the city regularly starting as young as six or seven years old. Children also start riding the subway across the city on their own at the same age. This may seem like crazy talk to Americans and all our minor infraction trials, but in Japan, it is essentially second nature. Parents and children, there are not afraid of strangers like other people are because at a really young age everybody is taught that the entire community shares responsibility and that they can rely on anyone they meet. This belief is reinforced almost anywhere you go, schools do this by having the kids take turns cleaning the classrooms each day, handing out lunches, etc. This sense of independence also gives them a reason to take care of what they own since they feel like they earned it themselves. The parents themselves are not worried because Japan has extremely easy to use city layouts, the entire country has a very low crime rate, it is also simply easier for the Japanese to function this way since most travel is done on subway, bus or by foot, and usually people do not take the time to privately drive someone somewhere.

Overall, Japan is a favorite place for many people to go sightseeing, but at the same time, it has massive cities with tons of people living in one condo. Although the regions are 6lumped together there are so many different regions, each with their own separate culture and dialects. They have also overcome physical barriers such as the mountainous terrain and restricted amount of space. Japan trades, but usually only for the raw materials they are lacking, and generally sells very technology-oriented products. Japan also has a very trusting society with little worry over other people’s actions and a very controlling transportation system.

In conclusion, we can gather that Japan has a unique culture that is very self-sufficient and determined to accomplish whatever they can.