In this day and age with widely available maps, I find it perplexing that some people still don’t know where Japan is. Hopefully the following information is all old news to you, but if not, get ready for a geography lesson on Japan.

As you can see on the map at the left, eastern Japan is located near South Korea (かんこく), North Korea (きたちょうせん), China (ちゅうごく) and Russia (ロシヤ). To the west of Japan is the Pacific Ocean (たいへいよう). Climate wise, it varies depending on where you are in Japan. Northern Japan is known to have warm summers and long and cold winters. Central and Southwestern Japan is the opposite. It has hot and humid summers and short winters.

There are thousands of islands that are part of Japan, but the four major islands are: Hokkaidoo (北海道), Honshuu (本州), Shikoku (四国), and Kyuushuu (九州). Hokkaidō is part of northern Japan. Compared to the rest of the main islands, Hokkaidō gets significantly more snowfall. This is why Hokkaidō is famous for its snow and ice festivals. Honshuu is the largest island of Japan and unfortunately is the location of frequent earthquakes. Shikoku is the smallest island out of the major four islands, and is known to be an agriculturally intensive area. Kyūshū is the third largest island and is known for its hot springs and porcelin, automobile and chemical industries.

Japan is also divided into regions which are: Hokkaidō (北海道), Tōhoku (東北), Chūbu (中部), Shikoku (四国), Kantō (関東), Kansai (関西), Kyūshū (九州), Chūgoku (中国),  and Okinawa (沖縄). Within these regions there are forty seven assigned prefectures called todōfuken (都道府県). You can break those prefectures down to smaller administrative units called subprefectures or shichō (支庁). The subprefectures can be further divided into districts called gun (郡,).

The map on the left shows some of the major cities (市) in Japan, but there are certaintly more cities in Japan that are not listed on the map. In fact, there are way too many to list. The city of Tōkyō (東京市) is a large metropolitan area and lots of ‘special wards’ or tokubetsuku (特別区) exist in Tōkyō. These wards are kind of like mini cities that act independently of Tōkyō City. Within those wards there are towns or machi (町), which can be reduced to neighboorhoods or kinjyo (近所).