Country Profiles - Japan

JAPAN

Geography: An 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.
Government: Constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary government.
History: Legend 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.

Map of Japan

Emperor: Akihito (1989)

Prime Minister: Shinzo Abe (2012)

Land area: 140,728 sq mi (364,485 sq km); total area: 145,913 sq mi (377,915 sq km)

Population (2014 est.): 127,103,388 (growth rate: -0.13%); birth rate: 8.07/1000; infant mortality rate: 2.13/1000; life expectancy: 84.46

Capital and largest city (2009 est.): Tokyo, 37.217 million

Other large cities: Osaka-Kobe 11.494 million; Nagoya 3.328 million; Fukuoka-Kitakyushu 2.868 million; Sapporo 2.742 million; Sendai 2.428 million (2011)

Monetary unit: Yen

National name: Nippon

Language: Japanese

Ethnicity/race: Japanese 98.5%, Koreans 0.5%, Chinese 0.4%, other 0.6% note: up to 230,000 Brazilians of Japanese origin migrated to Japan in the 1990s to work in industries; some have returned to Brazil (2004)

Religions: Shintoism 83.9%, Buddhism 71.4%, Christianity 2%, other 7.8% note: total adherents exceeds 100% because many people belong to both Shintoism and Buddhism (2005)

National Holiday: Birthday of Emperor Akihito, December 23

Literacy rate: 99% (2002 est.)

Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2013 est.): $4.729 trillion; per capita $37,100. Real growth rate: 2%. Inflation: 0.2%. Unemployment: 4.1%. Arable land: 11.26%. Agriculture: rice, sugar beets, vegetables, fruit; pork, poultry, dairy products, eggs; fish. Labor force: 65.62 million; agriculture 3.9%, industry 26.2%, services 69.8% (2011). Industries: among world's largest and technologically advanced producers of motor vehicles, electronic equipment, machine tools, steel and nonferrous metals, ships, chemicals, textiles, processed foods. Natural resources: negligible mineral resources, fish. Exports: $697.8 billion (2013 est.): transport equipment, motor vehicles, semiconductors, electrical machinery, chemicals. Imports: $766.6 billion (2013 est.): petroleum 15.5%; liquid natural gas 5.7%; clothing 3.9%; semiconductors 3.5%; coal 3.5%; audio and visual apparatus 2.7% (2011 est.). Major trading partners: U.S., China, South Korea, Hong Kong, Australia, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Thailand, Qatar (2012).

Communications: Telephones: main lines in use: 64.273 million (2012); mobile cellular: 138.363 million (2011). Broadcast media: a mixture of public and commercial broadcast TV and radio stations; 6 national terrestrial TV networks including 1 public broadcaster; the large number of radio and TV stations available provide a wide range of choices; satellite and cable services provide access to international channels (2012). Internet hosts: 64.453 million (2012). Internet users: 99.182 million (2009).

Transportation: Railways: total: 27,182 km (2009). Highways: total: 1,210,251 km; paved: 973,234 km (includes 7,803 km of expressways); unpaved: 237,017 km (2003). Waterways: 1,770 km (seagoing vessels use inland seas) (2010). Ports and terminals: Chiba, Kawasaki, Kiire, Kisarazu, Kobe, Mizushima, Nagoya, Osaka, Tokyo, Yohohama. Airports: 175 (2013).

International disputes: the sovereignty dispute over the islands of Etorofu, Kunashiri, and Shikotan, and the Habomai group, known in Japan as the "Northern Territories" and in Russia as the "Southern Kuril Islands", occupied by the Soviet Union in 1945, now administered by Russia and claimed by Japan, remains the primary sticking point to signing a peace treaty formally ending World War II hostilities; Japan and South Korea claim Liancourt Rocks (Take-shima/Tok-do), occupied by South Korea since 1954; China and Taiwan dispute both Japan's claims to the uninhabited islands of the Senkaku-shoto (Diaoyu Tai) and Japan's unilaterally declared exclusive economic zone in the East China Sea, the site of intensive hydrocarbon prospecting.

-------------------- o --------------------