Along with a number of unique attributes, the country of Japan is also known as an Island Nation. Other than abundant small isles, four major islands of Honshu, Kyushu, Hokkaido, and Shikoku form the ‘Nippon’ or Japanese Islands. The strategic location in the North Pacific Ocean has made the Japanese islands an important archipelago.
Japan’s distance from the Asian continent is about 125 miles. These islands of Japan pervade approximately 380,500 square kilometers of area.
Few of the extensive range of small isles in Japan are as follows:
- Okushiri
- Rishiri
- Yagishiri
- Mikura
- Hachijo
- Koju
- Miyake
- Etajima
- Odaiba
- Daikon Island
- Daito
- Ogasawara Islands
- Izu Islands
Over two-thirds of the terrain of Japan is cragged and hilly. An extended string of mountains moves down its central region, dividing it into two similar halves. The Japanese islands are, actually, the crests of mountain ridges that were picked up near the outer border of the Asian mainland.
The mountain ranges of Japan are extrusive and volcanic and approximately fifty of those volcanoes are active. The climatic conditions in the Japanese islands are dominated by warm and humid summers and cool winters.
The population of Japan is mainly centralized in the plain land as well as the basin regions of the mountains. Thus the eminent cities are constricted into one-third portion of Japan’s entire land mass. Tokyo the biggest city in the Japanese Islands is proclaimed as its capital city.
