Japan and It's 5 Themes of Geography

Instead of choosing just one of the five themes of geography for my

project, I decided to pick a location that interests me then investigate all five

themes throughout my location. I chose Japan since this is a place I have always

wanted to visit, but do not think I will ever have the opportunity to go. While

investigating the five themes, I found the endless amount of depth to each theme.

Therefore, I will only briefly be addressing each geographic theme for Japan.

The first theme I will be addressing is location and regions. Japan is a series

of islands located to the east of Russia and Korea and is separated by the Sea of

Japan and is part of the continent Asia. The coordinates for the middle of Japan are

36 degrees north and 138 degrees east of the Prime Meridian. Japan is made up of

several thousands of islands. To the west is the North Pacific Ocean. Japan is about

300,000 kilometers and is about the size of California.

Japan is broken into eight regions as shown below in my example. Each

region varies some with difference in customs and culture. The first is the northern

most one you see below. It is called Hokkaido. Hokkaido is the second largest of

Japan's islands. It has very harsh winters at below zero temperatures with lots of

snow and very mild summers.

Hokkaido is the least

developed of Japan's islands,

therefore it attracts nature

lovers, skiers, and

snowboarders. Moving down

the map, the next place you

see is the Tohoku Region. It

is in the north part of Japan's

largest island, Honshu. This region seems to have a little of everything with its

countrysides, mountains, lakes, and it's hot springs. This region has harsh winters

much like the Hokkaido region, but it is known for producing very high quality

rice. The next region is the Kanto region. This region is just a very large plain and

because of that, this is where the large cities of Tokyo and Yokohama are located.

Being the home of such large cities the Kanto Region is very dense in population,

probably the most populated part of Japan. The Chubu Region is in the middle of

Honshu. What I found interesting about the Chubu Region is that this region is also

broken into three other regions within itself. The northern part of the Chubu

Region along the coast is also known as the Hokuriku Region. The mid part of

Chubu is called the Koshinetsu Region and the southern part is called Tokai

Region. The Kinki Region is usually referred to as Kansai. This is the political and

cultural center for Japan, much like Seattle and Olympia are for Washington. This

region is the home of many popular cities such as Osaka and Kyoto. The Chugoku

Region is on the western part of Honshu. This region is also divided into two other

regions within itself. One is Sanyo, along the Seto Inland Sea coast. This part is

very urbanized and industrialized. The other is Sanin which is along the coast of

the Sea of Japan. This part is very rural and much less developed than Sanyo.

South of Chugoku is the Shikoku Region. This region is Japan's fourth largest

island and the smallest of the four main islands. It is also the least populated out of

them. Kyushu Region is the southernmost if Okinawa is included with it. I do not

think it should be, but I have found many resources that do include Okinawa with

Kyushu. Kyushu is one of the first places of Japanese civilization. Because of this,

Kyushu has lots of historic treasures. Okinawa is considered by most to be part of

the Kyushu Region. It consists of many small islands closely together that run in a

chain from Kyushu to Taiwan. This stretch is over one thousand kilometers.

The next two themes I will look at are the nature-culture and the cultural

landscape of Japan. Since Japan consists of many islands and much of Japan is on

a coastline, fishing is an important way of life. In the non-urbanized parts of Japan,

you will mostly find small fishing villages on the outskirts by the water or strip

mines in the mountainous regions. However, a lot of these places have been

abandoned for the crowded city life. Also, agriculture is very important there. They

are the largest producer of some of the highest quality rice with all the rice paddies.

Japan has a very rough terrain covered with mountains, many of which are

volcanoes. With the mountains