Japan Map

Four main islands and 14,000 more

Japan is an archipelago in the northwest Pacific, stretching about 3,000 kilometers from Hokkaido in the north to the Ryukyu Islands, whose western end lies just over 100 kilometers from Taiwan. Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku make up about 97 percent of the land area. In 2023 the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan recounted the islands using digital maps and arrived at 14,125, roughly double the long-cited figure of 6,852. The Sea of Japan (the East Sea in Korean usage) separates the country from the Korean Peninsula and Russia's Far East, while the Korea Strait between Kyushu and Korea is about 200 kilometers wide, with the Japanese island of Tsushima in the middle. Japan covers about 378,000 square kilometers and has about 123 million people (UN World Population Prospects, 2025 estimate), a number that has been falling since the late 2000s as deaths outnumber births.

Mountains, volcanoes and earthquakes

Around three-quarters of Japan is mountainous, so cities, farms and rail lines crowd onto narrow coastal plains. The largest, the Kanto Plain, holds Tokyo, Yokohama and roughly 30 percent of the population. The Japanese Alps (the Hida, Kiso and Akaishi ranges) run down central Honshu with many peaks above 3,000 meters, and Mount Fuji, a stratovolcano that last erupted in 1707, is the highest point at 3,776 meters (see the mountain ranges of Asia). Rivers are short and steep; the longest, the Shinano, runs 367 kilometers to the Sea of Japan at Niigata, and Lake Biwa near Kyoto is the largest lake.

The country sits where the Pacific, Philippine Sea, Eurasian and North American (Okhotsk) plates meet. The Japan Meteorological Agency monitors 111 active volcanoes, and strong earthquakes are a fact of life. The magnitude 9.0 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of March 2011 left more than 18,000 people dead or missing and caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident.

Seasons and when to visit

Hokkaido has long, snowy winters (the Sapporo Snow Festival is held in February), and northwest winds off the Sea of Japan bury the western side of Honshu in some of the heaviest snow of any inhabited region. The Pacific side is drier and sunnier in winter but hot and humid in summer. The tsuyu rainy season runs from about early June to mid-July everywhere except Hokkaido, and typhoons peak from August to September, hitting Okinawa and Kyushu most often. Okinawa is subtropical all year. Most visitors aim for late March to early April, when cherry blossoms reach Tokyo and Kyoto, or for October and November, when autumn colors move south from Hokkaido.

Prefectures and regions

Japan is divided into 47 prefectures: Tokyo Metropolis (to), Hokkaido (do), the urban prefectures of Osaka and Kyoto (fu) and 43 ordinary prefectures (ken). They are grouped informally into eight regions: Hokkaido, Tohoku, Kanto, Chubu, Kansai (Kinki), Chugoku, Shikoku and Kyushu, which usually includes Okinawa. The country is a constitutional monarchy in which the Emperor has a ceremonial role and the elected National Diet governs.

Major Cities

City-proper populations from the 2020 census, rounded:

• Tokyo - The 23 special wards hold about 9.7 million people and the wider Greater Tokyo Area about 37 million. Long ranked the world's largest city, Tokyo was placed third (about 33 million) behind Jakarta and Dhaka in the UN's World Urbanization Prospects 2025, which uses a new, consistent definition of urban areas
• Yokohama - About 3.8 million, the largest single municipality, a port opened to foreign trade in 1859 and now part of Greater Tokyo
• Osaka - About 2.8 million, the commercial center of the Kansai region and host of Expo 2025
• Nagoya - About 2.3 million, the hub of the Chubu region and of an industrial belt that includes Toyota's home base in nearby Toyota City
• Sapporo - About 2.0 million, the capital of Hokkaido, laid out on a grid in the 1870s and host of the 1972 Winter Olympics
• Fukuoka - About 1.6 million, Kyushu's largest city and Japan's closest major city to Korea, with ferries to Busan
• Kyoto - About 1.5 million, seat of the imperial court from 794 until 1869, with 17 temples, shrines and a castle listed together as a World Heritage Site

How Japan's map took shape

Under the Tokugawa shogunate (1603-1868) Japan sharply limited contact with the outside world. After the Meiji Restoration of 1868 the new government settled Hokkaido, annexed the Ryukyu Kingdom as Okinawa Prefecture in 1879, and built an empire that took in Taiwan in 1895 and Korea in 1910. Defeat in 1945 reduced Japan to its four main islands and nearby islets; the Allied occupation ended in 1952, and the United States returned Okinawa in 1972. Three island disputes remain. Russia administers the southern Kuril Islands, which the Soviet Union took in 1945 and which Japan claims as its Northern Territories, so the two countries have never signed a peace treaty. South Korea administers the Liancourt Rocks (Dokdo in Korean, Takeshima in Japanese), which Japan claims. Japan administers the Senkaku Islands, which China and Taiwan both claim as the Diaoyu or Diaoyutai Islands.

Facts worth knowing

• Japan was the world's third-largest economy until 2023, when Germany passed it in US-dollar terms, and IMF projections had India moving ahead in 2025. A weak yen explains much of the slide.
• The Tokaido Shinkansen opened between Tokyo and Osaka in 1964. In six decades of high-speed operation no passenger has been killed in a Shinkansen derailment or collision, and the fastest trains now run at 320 km/h.
• Japan has 27 UNESCO World Heritage Sites (22 cultural, 5 natural) after the Asuka-Fujiwara sites in Nara Prefecture were added in July 2026. Others include Himeji Castle, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, Mount Fuji, Yakushima and the Sado Island Gold Mines.
• Tokyo's wholesale fish market moved from Tsukiji to a new site at Toyosu in October 2018. The famous tuna auctions now take place at Toyosu, while Tsukiji's outer market of shops and food stalls still operates.
• Japanese life expectancy is among the highest in the world, and the number of people aged 100 or over is approaching 100,000.