There are thousands of islands that are part of Japan, but the four major islands are: Hokkaidoo (\u5317\u6d77\u9053<\/strong>), Honshuu (\u672c\u5dde<\/strong>), Shikoku (\u56db\u56fd<\/strong>), and Kyuushuu (\u4e5d\u5dde<\/strong>). Hokkaid\u014d is part of northern Japan. Compared to the rest of the main islands, Hokkaid\u014d gets significantly more snowfall. This is why Hokkaid\u014d 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. Ky\u016bsh\u016b is the third largest island and is known for its hot springs and porcelin, automobile and chemical industries.<\/p>\n Japan is also divided into regions which are: Hokkaid\u014d (\u5317\u6d77\u9053<\/strong>), T\u014dhoku (\u6771\u5317<\/strong>), Ch\u016bbu (\u4e2d\u90e8<\/strong>), Shikoku (\u56db<\/strong>\u56fd<\/strong>), Kant\u014d (\u95a2<\/strong>\u6771<\/strong>), Kansai (\u95a2<\/strong>\u897f<\/strong>), Ky\u016bsh\u016b (\u4e5d\u5dde<\/strong>), Ch\u016bgoku (\u4e2d\u56fd<\/strong>), \u00a0and Okinawa (\u6c96<\/strong>\u7e04<\/strong>). Within these regions there are forty seven assigned prefectures called tod\u014dfuken (\u90fd\u9053\u5e9c<\/strong>\u770c<\/strong>). You can break those prefectures down to smaller administrative units called subprefectures or shich\u014d (\u652f<\/strong>\u5e81<\/strong>). The subprefectures can be further divided into districts called gun (\u90e1<\/strong>,).<\/p>\n The map on the left shows some of the major cities (\u5e02<\/strong>) 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 T\u014dky\u014d (\u6771\u4eac<\/strong>\u5e02<\/strong>) is a large metropolitan area and lots of \u2018special wards\u2019 or tokubetsuku (\u7279\u5225<\/strong>\u533a<\/strong>) exist in T\u014dky\u014d. These wards are kind of like mini cities that act independently of T\u014dky\u014d City. Within those wards there are towns or machi (\u753a<\/strong>), which can be reduced to neighboorhoods or kinjyo (\u8fd1\u6240<\/strong>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In this day and age with widely available maps, I find it perplexing that some people still don\u2019t 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…<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2011\/04\/japan_map_2-279x350.gif\")