Between the 4th and 6th centuries, its kingdoms were united under an emperor in Nara and later in Heian-kyō. Japan’s neighbors include the Republic of Korea, China and Russia.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is Japan’s national space agency; it conducts space, planetary, and aviation research, and leads development of rockets and satellites. Japan is a leading robotics producer, supplying 38% of the world’s 2024 total, down from 55% in 2017. The country has produced twenty-two Nobel laureates in either physics, chemistry or medicine, and three Fields medalists. Japan’s service sector accounts for about 69.8% of its total economic output as of 2023update.
More recent major quakes are the 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake and the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, which triggered a large tsunami. Destructive earthquakes, often resulting in tsunami, occur several times each century; the 1923 Tokyo earthquake killed over 140,000 people. As of 2014update, approximately 0.5% of Japan’s total area is reclaimed land (umetatechi). Honshu has the highest population density at 450 persons/km2 (1200/sq mi) as of 2010update, while Hokkaido has the lowest density of 64.5 persons/km2 as of 2016update. The Ryukyu Islands, which include Okinawa, are a chain to the south of Kyushu. In 2011, Japan suffered one of the largest earthquakes in its recorded history—the Tōhoku earthquake—triggering the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.
Climate
- The country attracted 36.9 million international tourists in 2024, and was ranked eleventh in the world in 2019 for inbound tourism.
- The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is Japan’s national space agency; it conducts space, planetary, and aviation research, and leads development of rockets and satellites.
- The resignation of the shōgun led to the Boshin War and the establishment of a centralized state nominally unified under the emperor (the Meiji Restoration).
- Payment for personal medical services is offered through a universal health insurance system that provides relative equality of access, with fees set by a government committee.
- Confucian ideals remain evident in the Japanese concept of society and the self, and in the organization of the government and the structure of society.
- The Japanese agricultural sector accounts for about 1.2% of the country’s total GDP as of 2018update.
Beginning in 2000, Japan implemented the Happy Monday System, which moved a number of national holidays to Monday in order to obtain a long weekend. Japanese animated films and television series, known as anime, were largely influenced by Japanese manga and have become highly popular globally. Many Japanese media franchises have gained considerable global popularity and are among the world’s highest-grossing media franchises. Popular music in post-war Japan has been heavily influenced by American and European trends, which has led to the evolution of J-pop.
Health
Western classical music, introduced in the late 19th century, forms an integral part of Japanese culture. https://www.richyfox.co.uk/ Confucian ideals remain evident in the Japanese concept of society and the self, and in the organization of the government and the structure of society. Natsume Sōseki and Mori Ōgai were significant novelists in the early 20th century, followed by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, Kafū Nagai and, more recently, Haruki Murakami and Kenji Nakagami. During the Edo period, the chōnin (“townspeople”) overtook the samurai aristocracy as producers and consumers of literature. In the early Heian period, the system of phonograms known as kana (hiragana and katakana) was developed.
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The Ryukyu and Nanpō Islands have a subtropical climate, with warm winters and hot summers. Precipitation is not heavy, but the islands usually develop deep snowbanks in the winter. The northernmost region, Hokkaido, has a humid continental climate with long, cold winters and very warm to cool summers.
Human rights
Since the 19th century, Japan has incorporated much of Western modern architecture into construction and design. Japan has one of the world’s highest suicide rates, which is considered a major social issue. Since 1981, the principal cause of death in Japan is cancer, which accounted for 27% of the total deaths in 2018—followed by cardiovascular diseases, which led to 15% of the deaths. Since 1973, all elderly persons have been covered by government-sponsored insurance.
In 1936, Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Nazi Germany; the 1940 Tripartite Pact made it one of the Axis powers. This process accelerated in the 1930s, spawning several radical nationalist groups that shared a hostility to liberal democracy and a dedication to expansion in Asia. The Japanese population doubled from 35 million in 1873 to 70 million by 1935, with a significant shift to urbanization. Adopting Western political, judicial, and military institutions, the Cabinet organized the Privy Council, introduced the Meiji Constitution (November 29, 1890), and assembled the Imperial Diet.
Around 14,500 BC (the start of the Jōmon period), a Mesolithic to Neolithic semi-sedentary hunter-gatherer culture characterized by pit dwelling and rudimentary agriculture emerged. The old Malay name for Japan, Japang or Japun, was borrowed from a southern coastal Chinese dialect and encountered by Portuguese traders in Southeast Asia, who brought the word to Europe in the early 16th century. In the 13th century, Marco Polo recorded the Early Mandarin Chinese pronunciation of the characters 日本國 as Cipangu. The characters 日本 mean ‘sun origin’, which is the source of the popular Western epithet “Land of the Rising Sun”. Nihon is typically used in everyday speech and reflects shifts in Japanese phonology during the Edo period.
Because of its far-flung outlying islands, Japan’s exclusive economic zone is the eighth-largest in the world, covering 4,470,000 km2 (1,730,000 sq mi). The country’s five main islands, from north to south, are Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu and Okinawa. The Allies convened the International Military Tribunal for the Far East to prosecute Japanese leaders except the Emperor for Japanese war crimes. In 1931, Japan invaded China and occupied Manchuria, which led to the establishment of puppet state of Manchukuo in 1932; following international condemnation of the occupation, it resigned from the League of Nations in 1933.
As of 2019update, 37.1% of energy in Japan is produced from petroleum, 25.1% from coal, 22.4% from natural gas, 3.5% from hydropower and 2.8% from nuclear power, among other sources. The Keihin and Hanshin superport hubs are among the largest in the world, at 7.98 and 5.22 million TEU respectively as of 2017update. The largest domestic airport, Haneda Airport in Tokyo, was Asia’s second-busiest airport in 2019. The high-speed Shinkansen (bullet trains) that connect major cities are known for their safety and punctuality. The largest lunar mission since the Apollo program, its purpose was to gather data on the Moon’s origin and evolution. Japan’s plans in space exploration include building a Moon base and landing astronauts by 2030.
- In 2020, the government of Japan announced a target of carbon-neutrality by 2050.
- By 2015, Japan had become the world’s fourth-largest PC game market by revenue, behind China, the United States, and South Korea.
- In December 2022, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida instructed the government to increase spending by 65% until 2027.
- In 2024, Japan was the world’s eight-largest exporter and sixth-largest importer.
- The country’s military, the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF), is restricted by Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, which renounces Japan’s right to declare war or use military force in international disputes.
- Oda Nobunaga used European technology and firearms to conquer many other daimyō; his consolidation of power began what was known as the Azuchi–Momoyama period.
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Japan has close economic and military relations with the United States, with which it maintains a security alliance. It is the world’s fifth-largest donor of official development assistance, donating US$9.2 billion in 2014. Since the late 19th century, the judicial system has been largely based on the civil law of Europe, notably Germany. Historically influenced by Chinese law, the Japanese legal system developed independently during the Edo period through texts such as Kujikata Osadamegaki. It consists of a lower House of Representatives with 465 seats, elected by popular vote every four years or when dissolved, and an upper House of Councillors with 248 seats, whose popularly-elected members serve six-year terms.
Japanese comics, known as manga, developed in the mid-20th century and have become popular worldwide. Ishirō Honda’s Godzilla became an international icon of Japan and spawned an entire subgenre of kaiju films, as well as the longest-running film franchise in history. Japanese television dramas are viewed both within Japan and internationally. Kumi-daiko (ensemble drumming) was developed in post-war Japan and became very popular in North America. The popular folk music, with the guitar-like shamisen, dates from the 16th century.
The culture of Japan is well known around the world, particularly its popular culture as expressed in animation, art, comics, cuisine, fashion, films, music, television, and video games. It has one of the world’s highest life expectancies, but is undergoing a population decline. Since the collapse of the Japanese asset price bubble in the early 1990s, it has experienced a prolonged period of economic stagnation referred to as the Lost Decades. It underwent rapid economic growth in the following decades and became one of the first major non-NATO allies of the U.S. The Meiji period saw Japan pursue rapid industrialization, modernization, militarism, and overseas colonization. In 1853, an American fleet forced Japan to open trade to the West, which led to the end of the shogunate and the restoration of imperial power in 1868.