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Japan consists of over three thousand islands and the largest of which are Honshū, Hokkaidō, Kyūshū and Shikoku, together accounting for 97% of the land area. Japan is located in Far Eastern Asia, dividing the East China Sea from the Pacific Ocean. Japan’s neighbouring countries are China, Russia, North Korea, South Korea and Taiwan.
Over 70% of Japan’s territory is mountainous, forested, and unsuitable for agricultural, industrial, or residential use. Yet many of the mountains are volcanic and consist of igneous rock. Japan’s highest peak, Mount Fuji, stands over 3700 metres tall and is a volcano. Japan has the world’s tenth largest population, with roughly 128 million people.
Its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire, at the juncture of three tectonic plates, gives Japan frequent low-intensity tremors and occasional volcanic activity. Destructive earthquakes, often resulting in tsunamis, occur several times each century. The most recent major quakes are the 2004 Chūetsu earthquake and the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995. Hot springs are numerous and have been developed as resorts.


Strung across the eastern margin of Asia, the island of Japan has performed an economic miracle. In little over a century, an isolated feudal backwater with few natural resources has been transformed into a dynamic into a dynaamic industrial super state with a growth rate of around 5 per cent a year. Japan dominates the North Pacific area, the world’s most vigorously expanding economic religion.


In 1945, Japan became the first country to experience a nuclear holocaust when atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yet today, the Japanese can be proud of an economy that is the second largest in the free world, and is still expanding at rates few other industrial nations dream of achieving.
The rate of employment, at less than 3 per cent, is almost unrivalled and income per head...