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Travel to Japan — Unbiased reviews and
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Japan
National name: Nippon
Emperor: Akihito (1989)
Prime Minister: Taro Aso
(2008)
Current government officials
Land area: 152,411 sq mi (394,744 sq km);
total area: 145,882 sq mi (377,835 sq km)
Population (2008 est.): 127,288,419
(growth rate: -0.1%); birth rate: 7.8/1000; infant mortality rate:
2.8/1000; life expectancy: 82.0; density per sq km: 339
Capital and largest city (2003 est.):
Tokyo, 35,327,000 (metro. area), 8,483,050
(city proper)
Other large cities: Yokohama,
3,494,900 (part of Tokyo metro. area); Osaka, 11,286,000 (metro.
area), 2,597,000 (city proper); Nagoya, 2,189,700; Sapporo,
1,848,000; Kobe, 1,529,900 (part of Osaka metro. area); Kyoto,
1,470,600 (part of Osaka metro. area); Fukuoka, 1,368,900; Kawasaki,
1,276,200 (part of Tokyo metro. area); Hiroshima, 1,132,700
Monetary unit: Yen
Language:
Japanese
Ethnicity/race:
Japanese 99%; Korean, Chinese, Brazillian,
Filipino, other 1% (2004)
Religions:
Shintoist and Buddhist 84%, other 16%
(including Christian 0.7%)
National Holiday:
Birthday of Emperor Akihito, December 23
Literacy rate: 99% (2002 est.)
Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2007
est.): $4.29 trillion; per capita $33,600. Real growth rate:
2.1%. Inflation: 0%. Unemployment: 4%. Arable
land: 12%. Agriculture: rice, sugar beets, vegetables,
fruit; pork, poultry, dairy products, eggs; fish. Labor force:
66.07 million; agriculture 4.6%, industry 27.8%, services 67.7%
(2004). 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: $665.7 billion f.o.b. (2007 est.):
transport equipment, motor vehicles, semiconductors, electrical
machinery, chemicals. Imports: $571.1billion f.o.b. (2007
est.): machinery and equipment, fuels, foodstuffs, chemicals,
textiles, raw materials. Major trading partners: U.S., China,
South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Australia, Saudi Arabia,
UAE (2006).
Communications: Telephones: main lines
in use: 55.155 million (2006); mobile cellular: 101.7 million
(2006). Radio broadcast stations: AM 215 plus 370 repeaters,
FM 89 plus 485 repeaters, shortwave 21 (2001). Television
broadcast stations: 211 plus 7,341 repeaters; note: in addition,
U.S. Forces are served by 3 TV stations and 2 TV cable services
(1999). Internet hosts: 33.333 million (2007). Internet
users: 87.54 (2006).
Transportation: Railways: total: 23,474
km (16,519 km electrified) (2006). Highways: total: 1,183
million km; paved: 925,000 km (including 6,946 km of expressways);
unpaved: 258,000 km (2003). Waterways: 1,770 km (seagoing
vessels use inland seas) (2007). Ports and harbors: Chiba,
Kawasaki, Kiire, Kisarazu, Kobe, Mizushima, Nagoya, Osaka, Tokyo,
Yohohama. Airports: 176 (2007).
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.
Major sources and definitions
Recent Rulers of Japan
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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.
Japan quickly made the transition from a
medieval to a modern power. An imperial army was established with
conscription, and parliamentary government was formed in 1889. The
Japanese began to take steps to extend their empire. After a brief war
with China in 1894–1895, Japan acquired Formosa (Taiwan), the
Pescadores Islands, and part of southern Manchuria. China also recognized
the independence of Korea (Chosen), which Japan later annexed (1910).
In 1904–1905, Japan defeated Russia in the
Russo-Japanese War, gaining the territory of southern Sakhalin (Karafuto)
and Russia's port and rail rights in Manchuria. In World War I, Japan
seized Germany's Pacific islands and leased areas in China. The Treaty of
Versailles then awarded Japan a mandate over the islands.
At the Washington Conference of 1921–1922,
Japan agreed to respect Chinese national integrity, but, in 1931, it
invaded Manchuria. The following year, Japan set up this area as a puppet
state, “Manchukuo,” under Emperor Henry Pu-Yi, the last of
China's Manchu dynasty. On Nov. 25, 1936, Japan joined the Axis. The
invasion of China came the next year, followed by the Pearl Harbor attack
on the U.S. on Dec. 7, 1941. Japan won its first military engagements
during the war, extending its power over a vast area of the Pacific. Yet,
after 1942, the Japanese were forced to retreat, island by island, to
their own country. The dropping of atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki in 1945 by the United States finally brought the government
to admit defeat. Japan surrendered formally on Sept. 2, 1945, aboard the
battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Southern Sakhalin and the Kuril
Islands reverted to the USSR, and Formosa (Taiwan) and Manchuria to China.
The Pacific islands remained under U.S. occupation.
Gen. Douglas MacArthur was appointed supreme
commander of the U.S. occupation of postwar Japan (1945–1952). In
1947, a new constitution took effect. The emperor became largely a
symbolic head of state. The U.S. and Japan signed a security treaty in
1951, allowing for U.S. troops to be stationed in Japan. In 1952, Japan
regained full sovereignty, and, in 1972, the U.S. returned to Japan the
Ryuku Islands, including Okinawa.
Japan's postwar economic recovery was nothing
short of remarkable. New technologies and manufacturing were undertaken
with great success. A shrewd trade policy gave Japan larger shares in many
Western markets, an imbalance that caused some tensions with the U.S. The
close involvement of Japanese government in the country's banking and
industry produced accusations of protectionism. Yet economic growth
continued through the 1970s and 1980s, eventually making Japan the world's
second-largest economy (after the U.S.).
During the 1990s, Japan suffered an economic
downturn prompted by scandals involving government officials, bankers, and
leaders of industry. Japan succumbed to the Asian economic crisis in 1998,
experiencing its worst recession since World War II. These setbacks led to
the resignation of Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto in July 1998. He was
replaced by Keizo Obuchi. In 1999, Japan seemed to make slight progress in
an economic recovery. Prime Minister Obuchi died of a stroke in May 2000
and was succeeded by Yoshiro Mori, whose administration was dogged by
scandal and blunders from the outset.
Despite attempts to revive the economy, fears
that Japan would slide back into recession increased in early 2001. The
embattled Mori resigned in April 2001 and was replaced by Liberal Democrat
Junichiro Koizumi—the country's 11th prime minister in 13 years.
Koizumi enjoyed fleeting popularity; after two years in office the economy
remained in a slump and his attempts at reform were thwarted.
At an unprecedented summit meeting in North
Korea in Sept. 2002, President Kim Jong Il apologized to Koizumi for North
Korea's kidnapping of Japanese citizens during the 1970s and 1980s, and
Koizumi pledged a generous aid package—both significant steps toward
normalizing relations.
Koizumi was overwhelmingly reelected in Sept.
2003 and promised to push ahead with tough economic reforms.
In April 2005, China protested the publication
of Japanese textbooks that whitewashed the atrocities committed by Japan
during World War II. Prime Minister Koizumi apologized for Japan's abuses,
admitting that “Japan, through its colonial rule and aggression,
caused tremendous damage and suffering.”
In Aug. 2005, Koizumi called for early
elections, when the upper house of parliament rejected his proposal to
privatize the postal service—a reform he has long advocated. In
addition to delivering mail, Japan's postal service also functions as a
savings bank and has about $3 trillion in assets. Koizumi won a landslide
victory in September, with his Liberal Democrat Party securing its biggest
majority since 1986.
Princesss Kiko gave birth to a boy in September.
The child's birth spares Japan a controversial debate over whether women
should be allowed to ascend to the throne. The child is third in line to
become emperor, behind Crown Prince Naruhito, who has one daughter, and
the baby's father, Prince Akishino, who has two daughters.
In September, a week after becoming leader of
the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Shinzo Abe succeeded Junichiro
Koizumi as prime minister. He promptly assembled a conservative cabinet
and said he hoped to increase Japan's influence on global issues. Early
into his term, Abe focused on nationalist issues, giving the military a
more prominent role and paving the way to amend the country's pacifist
constitution. He suffered a stunning blow in July 2007 parliamentary
elections, however, when his Liberal Democratic Party lost control of the
upper house to the opposition Democratic Party.
Abe faced international criticism in early 2007
for refusing to acknowledge the military role in forcing as many as
200,000 Japanese women, known as comfort women, to provide sex to soldiers
during World War II. In March, Abe did apologize to the women, but
maintained his denial that the military was involved. "I express my
sympathy for the hardships they suffered and offer my apology for the
situation they found themselves in," he said.
A 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck in northwest
Japan in July 2007, killing 10 people and injuring more than 900. The
tremor caused skyscrapers in Tokyo to sway for almost a minute, buckled
roads and bridges, and damaged a nuclear power plant. About 315 gallons of
radioactive water leaked into the Sea of Japan.
Prime Minister Abe abruptly announced his
resignation in September just days into the parliamentary session, during
which he stated his controversial plan to extend Japan's participation in
a U.S.-led naval mission in Afghanistan. The move followed a string of
scandals and the stunning defeat of his Liberal Democratic Party in July's
parliamentary elections. The Liberal Democratic Party elected Yasuo Fukuda
to succeed Abe. Fukuda, a veteran lawmaker, was elected to Parliament in
1990 and held the post as chief cabinet secretary under Prime Minister
Junichiro Koizumi. His father, Takeo Fukuda, served as prime minister from
1976 to 1978.
In June 2008, the upper house of Parliament,
which is controlled by the opposition, censured Fukuda, citing his
management of domestic issues. The lower house, however, supported him in
a vote of confidence. Fukuda unexpectedly resigned in September, barely a
year in office. Shortly before he stepped down, Fukuda made several
cabinet changes and announced a $17 billion stimulus package, making his
resignation that much more stunning. He had, however, been unable to break
a stalemate in Parliament that prevented passage of several pieces of
important legislation.
Taro Aso, a conservative and former foreign minister, was elected as
president of the governing Liberal Democratic Party in September. Two days
later, on Sep. 24, the lower house of Parliament selected him as prime
minister. He is widely expected to call national elections in the coming
months. The opposition Democratic Party of Japan, which won control of the
upper house of Parliament in 2007, poses a viable threat to the Liberal
Democrats who have been in control for more than 50 years.
See also Encyclopedia: Japan. U.S. State Dept. Country Notes:
Japan Japanese Statistics Bureau www.stat.go.jp .
Information Please® Database, © 2008 Pearson
Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
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