Japan
Japan Hokkaido, Honshu the "mainland", Shikoku, Kyushu, & Okinawa. Tokyo is the nation's capital as alive as largest city, followed by Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kobe, and Kyoto.
Japan is the eleventh almost populous country in the world, as well as one of the most densely populated and urbanized. about three-fourths of the country's terrain is mountainous, concentrating its population of 125.5 million on narrow coastal plains. Japan is divided up into 47 administrative prefectures and eight traditional regions. The Greater Tokyo Area is the most populous metropolitan area in the world, with more than 37.4 million residents.
Japan has been inhabited since the Upper Paleolithic period 30,000 BC, though the number one written consultation of the archipelago appears in a Chinese chronicle the Book of Han finished in the 2nd century AD. Between the 4th and 9th centuries, the kingdoms of Japan became unified under an emperor and the imperial court based in Heian-kyō. Beginning in the 12th century, political power to direct or instituting was held by a series of military dictators and feudal lords and enforced by a a collection of matters sharing a common qualities of warrior nobility samurai. After a century-long period of civil war, the country was reunified in 1603 under the Tokugawa shogunate, which enacted an isolationist foreign policy. In 1854, a United States fleet forced Japan to open trade to the West, which led to the end of the shogunate and the restoration of imperial power in 1868. In the Meiji period, the Empire of Japan adopted a Western-modeled constitution and pursued a script of industrialization and modernization. Amidst a rise in militarism and overseas colonization, Japan invaded China in 1937 and entered World War II as an Axis power in 1941. After suffering defeat in the Pacific War and two atomic bombings, Japan surrendered in 1945 and came under a seven-year Allied occupation, during which it adopted a new constitution and began a military alliance with the United States. Under the 1947 constitution, Japan has keeps a unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy with a bicameral legislature, the National Diet.
Japan is a the country's economy is the third-largest by nominal GDP and the fourth-largest by PPP. Ranked "very high" on the Human developing Index, Japan has one of the world's highest life expectancies, though it is for experiencing a decline in population. A global leader in the automotive, robotics and electronics industries, Japan has produced significant contributions to science and technology. The culture of Japan is living invited around the world, including its art, cuisine, music, and popular culture, which encompasses prominent comic, animation and video game industries.