Geography


Land area: 374,744 sq km
Comparative area: slightly smaller than California
Population: 125,449,703 (July 1996 est.)
Coastline: 29,751 km
Climate: varies from tropical in south to cool temperate in north
Terrain: mostly rugged and mountainous

Land use:

arable land: 13%
permanent crops: 1%
meadows and pastures: 1%
forest and woodland: 67%
other: 18%

As you can tell from the statistics above, Japan is highly populated and very small; less than 20% of the land in Japan is habitable, so you can get an idea of how space is at a premium. One-story dwellings are practically non-existent. Most of the population is near coastline and mountains. It seems like almost every bit of flat land is taken up by something, and rice paddies seem to fill the countryside.

Like most other countries, the price of gasoline is quite high (up to $4 a gallon), and roads are not as wide as in the U.S.; this combined with high population density, prohibitive auto taxes and sparse parking makes car travel very expensive. As a result, most traveling is done by train, and Japan's train system is up to the task. Three main trunk lines carry the very fast "shinkansen" (bullet trains) make up the backbone of the system, but most traveling is done on the countless other train lines which crisscross the countryside and spread like nets across the cities.

Japan is divided into 47 prefectures (the largest being the entire island of Hokkaido), and each prefecture is made up of villages, towns, cities and sometimes areas analogous to counties. Larger cities will be divided into boroughs, or "wards." Each village, town, city or ward is divided into "machi," the size of large neighborhoods; each machi is divided into "chome," which usually consist of several dozen blocks. Each "chome" has numbered blocks, and each block has numbered houses. Since only important avenues have names, a house may not be identified by which street it is on, rather by which block, chome, and machi it is in.

Japanese people tend to take pride in their weather, noting that each of the four seasons are distinct. Mostly, however, you tend to take notice of summer (very hot and humid) and winter (very dry and cold). There is a pronounced rainy season in the summer ("tsuyu") during which typhoons often sweep by or hit the Japanese coast. Snowfall can be very pronounced in the north, along the Japan Sea coast and in central mountainous areas.

Japan happens to straddle no fewer than three continental tectonic plates, which converge just south and west of Tokyo. The last big earthquake to hit the Tokyo area was in 1923, is called the "Great Kanto Earthquake," and cause fires which burned down the city and killed scores of people. An awareness of this potential danger, recently made acute because of the Kobe quake a few years ago, drives the people of the area to observe earthquake readiness drills; you will see signs posted in neighborhoods showing which parks and fields to go to in case of a major earthquake. Many people, however, feel that Tokyo is woefully unprepared for such a disaster.


Here are a few vocabulary words for geography:

ken prefecture
shi city
machi town
machi / cho large neighborhood area
chome division of a machi or cho
doori / douro avenue or boulevard
kousoku douro expressway, turnpike (toll highway)
sen suffix for a train line



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