Japan

Japan — Nihon, or Nippon in its own official rendering — is an island country lying off the eastern coast of the Eurasian landmass, in the northern hemisphere¹². Its crescent-shaped archipelago runs some 2,400 kilometres from Hokkaido to the Ryukyus, parallel to the continental coastline, with the Sea of Japan in between¹. The national territory totals 377,976 square kilometres across the five main islands — Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu and Okinawa — and more than 14,000 smaller ones¹. A re-count completed in 2023 raised the official count of islands to 14,125³.

Emperor Naruhito is the 126th occupant of the throne, having acceded on 1 May 2019⁴. Japan is a constitutional monarchy with a national Diet of two legislative houses². Its constitution, enacted on 3 May 1947, forever renounces war as a sovereign right of the nation⁵⁶.

The country's 123.8 million people were 92.2 per cent urban in 2024⁷⁸. The three major metropolitan areas of Kanto, Kinki and Chukyo held 66.4 million people, or 52.6 per cent of the national total, in 2020¹. Its general government gross debt stood at 214.5 per cent of GDP in 2024, a ratio particularly high even compared with other major industrialized countries⁹¹.

For decades the standard tally of Japan's islands was 6,852, a figure published by the Japan Coast Guard in 1987³. When the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan re-counted them using its detailed digital basic map, the total came to 14,125 — more than double the count long in use³. The authority attributed the difference largely to the greater detail of modern mapping³. Under the counting rule, an island was a landmass drawn on the map, judged to have been naturally formed, with a shoreline of at least 0.1 km; the criterion follows the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea's definition of an island³.

Mountainous regions, including hilly terrain, account for about three-quarters of Japan's land area, and the mountains are steep, intricately carved by ravines¹. Forestland and fields covered 25.34 million hectares — 67 per cent of the surface — as of 2020, with a further 4.37 million hectares, or 11.6 per cent, under farmland¹. Mount Fuji, at 3,776 metres, is the highest mountain of them all; the next peaks all fall below 3,200 metres¹. Among the inland waters, the Shinano river runs 367 kilometres and Lake Biwa covers 669.3 square kilometres¹.

The archipelago has a temperate marine climate, varying by region under the influence of seasonal winds and ocean currents¹. Two long rainy seasons shape the year — one in early summer, when the southeast monsoon begins to blow, and one in autumn, when the winds cease — and from summer to autumn typhoons born over the Pacific strike the country, sometimes causing storm and flood damage¹. In recent years the weather has tended toward extremes, with record-breaking summer heat waves and frequent damage from localized torrential rain¹.

Japan lies in one of the most active seismic and volcanic zones in the world, and earthquakes and volcanic disasters strike it frequently¹⁰. Because the archipelago sits in the world's newest mobile belt, earthquakes are numerous and the proportion of active volcanoes is high¹. Roughly 1,000 tremors are recorded each year, most of them minor, but major quakes — such as those at Tokyo-Yokohama in 1923 and Kobe in 1995 — have brought considerable loss of life and widespread destruction².

Along the Nankai Trough, megathrust earthquakes of magnitude 8 or more occur repeatedly on a roughly 100 to 150 year cycle, though with varying intervals and source regions¹⁰. Violent eruptions are frequent, and at least 60 volcanoes have been active within historical time². The national catalogue of active volcanoes lists the country's volcanoes individually; its numbering reaches 111¹¹.

Monitoring is dense: the Japan Meteorological Agency runs an earthquake observation network of about 200 seismographs and 600 seismic intensity meters¹⁰. When an earthquake occurs, its Earthquake Early Warning system issues advance announcement of the estimated seismic intensity and the expected arrival time of principal motion¹⁰. On 11 March 2011, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake struck off the east coast of Honshu¹².

The head of state is Emperor Naruhito, the 126th Emperor, who acceded to the throne on 1 May 2019⁴. Under Article 1 of the constitution, the Emperor is the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people, his position deriving from the will of the people, with whom sovereign power resides⁵. In matters of state he acts on the advice and approval of the Cabinet, appointing the Prime Minister and the Chief Justice, convoking the National Diet, and promulgating laws and treaties¹³.

The constitution's Article 9 provides that the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes⁵. The preamble proclaims that sovereign power resides with the people and resolves that never again shall they be visited with the horrors of war through the action of government⁵. Naruhito's accession followed the reign of Emperor Akihito, the 125th Emperor, who acceded on 7 January 1989 upon the demise of Emperor Hirohito, posthumously Emperor Showa¹³.

Japan's recorded history begins only in the 1st century BCE, with mentions in Chinese sources². The first steps toward political unification came in the late 4th and early 5th centuries CE under the Yamato court². A great civilization developed first at Nara in the 8th century and then at Heian-kyō — today's Kyoto — from the late 8th to the late 12th century². The seven centuries that followed were dominated by military rulers, ending in near isolation from the outside world from the early 17th to the mid-19th century².

The reopening came under foreign pressure: after more than two centuries of near isolation, a United States naval expedition under Commodore Matthew Perry forced Japan to allow entry to foreigners in 1853–54². Contact with the West brought unprecedented change, and the country set out to become a modern industrialized nation². The Meiji Restoration of 1868 marked the starting point of Japanese industrialisation¹.

After 1868 Japan's population and economy expanded in tandem with the drive to build a modern nation-state¹. The population, steady at about 30 million from the 18th century through the first half of the 19th, reached 50 million in 1912 and surpassed 100 million in 1967¹. The rising state also reached outward, assembling an overseas empire in the decades that followed².

The modernizing state pursued the acquisition of a large overseas empire, initially in Korea and China². By late 1941, that policy of empire had caused direct confrontation with the United States and its allies². Defeat in the Second World War (1939–45) followed².

On 26 July 1945 the United States, the United Kingdom and China issued the Potsdam Declaration, demanding Japan's surrender⁶. The surrender was announced by imperial broadcast on 15 August 1945⁶. On 2 September 1945 the Instrument of Surrender was signed on the deck of the USS Missouri, formally ending the Second World War in the Pacific⁶.

The postwar years brought occupation reforms and a new constitution, promulgated on 3 November 1946 and in force from 3 May 1947⁵⁶. Growth followed at a pace matched by few nations: through the 1960s the Japanese economy expanded by more than 10 percent per annum¹. It was carried by private investment in plant and equipment, financed by high personal savings; by a large shift of workers from primary to secondary industries and an abundant labour force; and by productivity gains from adopting and improving foreign technologies¹.

In December 1971 Japan revalued the yen from 360 to the U.S. dollar — a rate it had kept for 22 years — to 308 yen, and in February 1973 it moved to a floating exchange-rate system¹. In October 1973 the fourth Middle East War set off the first oil crisis and high inflation¹. Japan recorded negative economic growth in 1974 for the first time in the postwar period¹.

At the end of 1980 the nation's net wealth stood at 1,363 trillion yen, 5.6 times GDP; by the end of 1990 it had reached 3,531 trillion yen, 8.0 times GDP, lifted by rising land and stock prices¹. At the beginning of 1990 stock prices plummeted, followed by sharp declines in land prices — the start of the bubble economy's collapse¹. In 1997 large banks began to fail, and in 1998 and 1999 the government injected public money into the banking sector to stabilize the financial system¹.

The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 triggered a serious financial crisis, and Japan was affected by the yen's rise and the sudden contraction in the United States and other economies¹. The Great East Japan Earthquake of 11 March 2011, and the nuclear power plant accident it caused, weakened the economic recovery¹. In January 2013, seeking an early end to deflation and escape from stagnation, the government set out its ‘three-arrows’ strategy, known as Abenomics¹.

By value added, the tertiary sector climbed from 50.9 per cent of Japan's output in 1970 to 73.0 per cent in 2020, while the primary sector shrank from 5.9 per cent to 1.1 per cent¹. Employment moved the same way: in 2020 the tertiary industry accounted for 73.4 per cent of employed persons, against 46.6 per cent in 1970¹. On World Bank data, Japan's GDP stood at about 4.19 trillion current US dollars in 2024, down from about 4.38 trillion in 2023, with GDP per capita of 33,797 current US dollars in 2024⁸.

The urban share of the population reached 92.19 per cent in 2024⁸. Inflation ran at 2.74 per cent in 2024, down from 3.27 per cent in 2023, and unemployment held at 2.5 per cent of the labour force in 2024⁸. After modest growth in 2023, the economy contracted slightly in 2024⁸. The heavy item is sovereign debt: the IMF put Japan's general government gross debt at 214.5 per cent of GDP in 2024, a burden particularly high even compared with other major industrialized countries⁹¹.

The total population was 123,802 thousand as of 1 October 2024 — down 550 thousand from the previous year, a rate of decrease of 0.44 per cent, and the fourteenth consecutive year of decline⁷. The total fertility rate fell below 2.00 in 1975, reached 1.26 in 2005, and then set a record low of 1.20 in 2023, after eight consecutive years of decline¹. Deaths stood at 13.0 per 1,000¹.

Japan is ageing fast: the population aged 65 and over was 36,243 thousand in 2024, or 29.3 per cent of the total, while those under 15 made up only 11.2 per cent⁷. Life expectancy at birth in 2023 was 87.1 years for women and 81.1 years for men, up for both from the previous year¹. Under the universal health insurance regime, life expectancy and healthcare standards sit at the highest level in the world¹. In 2024 the population ranked 12th in the world, 1.5 per cent of the global total¹.

Tokyo dominates the map: in 2020 Tokyo Metropolis counted 14.05 million residents, and the Kanto major metropolitan area 38.0 million¹. In 2024 Tokyo-to alone held 11.5 per cent of the national population, and the five most populous prefectures accounted for 37.9 per cent of the total⁷. Population fell in 45 of the 47 prefectures, with Akita-ken declining fastest⁷. In 2018 Tokyo was the world's largest city, home to 37,468 thousand people; UN projections show Delhi overtaking it as the world's largest city by 2030, with Tokyo's population declining by almost 900,000 between 2018 and 2030¹⁴.

Japan has 27 properties inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List — 22 cultural and 5 natural¹⁵. The first four inscriptions all date from 1993: the Buddhist Monuments in the Horyu-ji Area and Himeji-jo castle among the cultural sites, and Shirakami-Sanchi and Yakushima among the natural¹. Kyoto shows what depth the list protects: built in AD 794 on the model of the capitals of ancient China, it was the imperial capital until the middle of the 19th century and the centre of Japanese culture for more than 1,000 years¹⁶.

Fujisan — Mount Fuji — was inscribed for the sacred and artistic landscape that has drawn pilgrims, artists and poets to the lone, often snow-capped stratovolcano; the inscribed property consists of 25 sites¹⁷. In the 12th century the mountain became a centre of training for ascetic Buddhism that included Shinto elements, and its upper 1,500-metre tier carries pilgrim routes and crater shrines alongside sites around the base¹⁷. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome) preserves the only structure left standing where the first atomic bomb exploded on 6 August 1945¹⁸. In July 2024 Sado Island Gold Mines were inscribed as Japan's 26th World Heritage Site; in the 17th century the complex ranked as the leading gold producer in the world¹.

Washoku — the traditional dietary culture of the Japanese — was inscribed in 2013 on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity¹⁹. Inside the country the register is vast: as of 1 April 2025, 13,498 items stood designated as important cultural properties, 1,144 of them classified as national treasures¹. In 2021 the Jomon Prehistoric Sites in Northern Japan joined the World Heritage List — 17 sites that present the life and spiritual culture of people who lived in the region for more than 10,000 years by hunting, gathering and fishing¹.

Since the Second World War, Japan's economic growth — one of the greatest of any nation in that period — brought the country to the forefront of the world economy². Its 2023 trade balance with the United States showed a surplus of 8.7 trillion yen, up 34.0 per cent and a third consecutive annual increase, with exports of 20.3 trillion yen¹. Its ratio of outstanding general government debt to GDP is particularly high even compared with other major industrialized countries¹.

Japan thus faces the world with formidable industrial reach and a distinctive fragility: a population that has fallen for fourteen consecutive years, more than a quarter of its people aged 65 or over, and a government debt burden above twice its annual output⁷⁹.