| Land in Japan, which is a "shimaguni" (island country) |
General Data
- The Japanese archipelago (island chain) consists of four main islands (Honshû, Shikoku, Kyûshû and Hokkaidô) and some 3,000 smaller surrounding ones (see map 1). It lies off the Pacific coast of the Asian mainland; at the closest point, the main Japanese islands are 120 miles away from the mainland. (See map 2). Compare this with another shimaguni, Great Britain, which is, at the narrowest point of the English Channel, only 21 miles from Europe.
- Excluding disputed territory, the archipelago covers about 378,000 square kilometers.
- No point in Japan is more than 150 kilometers from the sea.
- About 73% of Japan's area is mountainous, and scattered plains and intermontane basins (in which the population is concentrated) cover only about 27%.
- Japan’s population is concentrated along the south coast, and to a lesser extent the north coast. The interior of Japan is practically empty.
- The total land space of the Japanese islands is about 142,000 square miles. As seen in map 2 and map 3, it is a very small country when compared with the vast Asian mainland, or with the United States, where it is smaller than the single, although large, state of California. It seems even smaller when you realize how little of its land is useful for agriculture or housing.
- Japan does not seem so small when compared with some of the nations of Western Europe. It is, for example, larger than Italy. (See map 4).
- Roughly 70% of Japan is mountainous and the country has a population of 127m with 93.5% of those those people living in the 30% of the country that is suitable for building. That leaves just 6.5% of the population living in the rural/mountainous parts that constitute 70% of the country.
- Land is obviously at
a premium in Japan: most dwellings (houses & flats) are small, with small gardens - almost all land is used for something: there are pockets of cultivation in urban areas on almost all unbuilt or otherwise used land.
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