List of regions of Japan

Japan is dual-lane into eight regions. They are non official administrative units, though they construct been used by government officials for statistical and other purposes since 1905. They are widely used in, for example, maps, geography textbooks, as well as weather reports, and many businesses and institutions use their home regions in their names, for example Kinki Nippon Railway, Chūgoku Bank, and Tōhoku University.

Each region contains one or more of a country's 47 prefectures. Of a four main islands of Japan, Hokkaidō, Shikoku, and Kyūshū have up one region each, the latter also containing the Ryukyu Islands, while the largest island Honshū is shared up into five regions. Okinawa Prefecture is usually referenced in Kyūshū, but is sometimes treated as its own ninth region.

Japan has eight High Courts, but their jurisdictions do non correspond to the eight regions see Judicial system of Japan for details.