Area The total area of Japan is 378,000 square kilometers (145,945 square miles). That's approximately 0.

3% of the world. Most Japanese perceive Japan as a small country, but it is bigger than Germany or Italy, though smaller than Sweden. Islands Japan is composed of over 3000 islands, 600 of which are inhabited. Honshu, the main island, is the 7th largest island in the world. Hokkaido, Japan's 2nd largest island is the 22nd largest island in the world. Top of Page Tokyo In terms of total population size, the Greater Tokyo area is the largest city in the world ('city" is here defined as a contiguous urban area, not the administratively/politically defined Tokyo). With a population of 26.5 million, more than 20% of all Japanese people live there. The second largest city in the world is Mexico City with 18 million inhabitants. Robots Japan has the highest density of robots in the world. There are approximately 800,00 industrial-use robots in operation around the world, and fully half of them in Japan. That's about 1 robot for every 310 people in Japan. Rivers The longest river in Japan is the Shinano. Beginning in Nagano (the Japanese Alps) it flows north and east 367 kilometers and enters the Japan Sea at the city of Niigata. Most Japanese rivers are "fast", descending rapidly. Top of Page Lakes The biggest lake in Japan is Lake Biwa, situated in Shiga Prefecture, near Kyoto. It is 670.3 sq. kms. in area, with 450 streams and rivers entering along its 235 km. shoreline. Its maximum depth is 103 metres. The name Biwa refers to a 4-string lute-like instrument whose shape the lake resembles. The lake supplies water to 14 million residents of the area. Defense Japan is the world's third biggest spender on defense, spending US$45,600,000,000 in 2000. Japan spends more on defence than China, but less than Russia. Japan's 1947 Constitution renounces war and "...the threat and use of force as means of settling international dispute", and "......land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.". Hmmm! Fuji The tallest mountain in Japan is Mount Fuji at 3,776 metres (12,388 ft). Probably the most easily recognized image of Japan, Fujisan is climbed by about 300,000 visitors each year. An active volcano, its last eruption was in 1770. Japan is home to almost 10% of the world's 840 active volcanoes. Top of Page Movies The most popular movie in Japan in 2002 was the anime "Spirited Away" by Hayao Miyazaki. (Original Japanese title "Sen to Chihiro no kamikushi"). It is also the most popular Japanese anime worldwide, winning this year's Oscar. Surprisingly, the 3rd most popular movie in Japan was Hollywood's "Pearl Harbor". Yakuza According to the Japanese National Police Agency, the largest Yakuza (Crime Syndicate) gang in Japan is the Yamaguchi-gumi, with more than 36,000 members, thats 43% of all Yakuza in Japan. The police can have such good information about the Yakuza, because until recently the Yakuza operated quite openly, with offices, newsletters, etc. However a new law has caused many yakuza to relinquish "membership" in a gang, so the official numbers are far smaller than the real numbers. Fishing 10 years ago Japan took more fish out of the sea (almost 10 million tons) than any other country. Now they catch almost half that, and have slipped to third place in the world ranking. However, they remain the biggest consumers of sea food, consuming fully one third of all seafood consumed in the world, importing 25% of the total world catch. "Seafood" means much more than fish, and includes crabs, lobsters, assorted shellfish, many kinds of seeweed, jellyfish, walrus, sea cucumbers (which aren't a vegetable), sea urchins, and of course whales. Top of Page Vending machines There are 5 million vending machines (jidohanbaiki) in Japan. That's one for every 25 people. They are everywhere. I have yet to find one that was vandalized, or that did not work properly. Far and away the most common vending machines are for soft drinks: a dazzling array of coffees and teas, both hot and cold, a limited range of "colas", various juices, "sports" drinks (such as the unfortunately named Pocari Sweat). Alcohol vending machines are easy to find, dispensing primarily beer and sake from 5am-11pm, and there are over 600,000 cigarette vending machines. Other items I've seen dispensed by machine are uncooked rice, batteries, condoms, newspapers, "Casual Food" (fried chicken, hamburgers etc), ice-cream, pornographic magazines and videos, and "used" schoolgirls' panties. Strangely, I haven't come across any machines vending chocolate or candy bars. Interesting facts about Japan History & Genetics y Japan has the oldest surviving monarchy in the world. The first historical emperor of Japan was Ojin, reigning from year 270 to 310, and deified as Hachiman. Legend has it that the very first emperor was Jinmu, who would have reigned 1000 years earlier. This is very unlikely though, for Japan did not become an agricultural and sedentary society before 300 BCE (and only then in western Japan). y Japan's national anthem, Kimi Ga Yo ( ), is the world's oldest anthem, although it was only officially recognised as such in 1999.It is based on a 9th century poem. y Genetic studies have revelaved that approximately 60% of Japanese gene pool comes from Korea and China, and 40% from the Stone Age inhabitants of Japan, the Jomon people (from whom the modern Ainu of the direct descendants). Nevertheless a northern Han Chinese from Beijing is genetically closer to a Japanese than to a southern Han Chinese from Canton. y Japan annexed Okinawa and Taiwan in 1895, then Korea in 1910, and kept them as part of the territory of the JapaneseEmpire until 1945. Okinawa still belongs to Japan. y The first extensive use of the rickshaw for transportation started in Japan from the 1870's. It later spread to the rest of East Asia and South Asia, where the motorized version is still very popular. The rickshaw is, however, not a Japanese invention. Some claim that it was invented by the American blacksmith Albert Tolman in 1848. Others attribute it to Jonathan Scobie, an American missionary to Japan, who invented it in 1869 to transport his invalid wife through the streets of Yokohama.

y Fortune cookies are not a Chinese invention, but a Japanese one going back to 19th-century Ky to and linked to the tradition of omikuji. Fortune cookies have since become very popular in the USA, especially in Chine restaurants, hence its false association with China. The se first American version of the cookie was introduced around 1900 by Makoto Hagiwara of Golden Gate Park's Japanese Tea Gardenin San Francisco. y Chazuke used to be a typical dish of the lower classes in the Edo era. People would add green tea on a bowl of cold rice in chaya (teahouse) along the road. This was considered a full meal by those who couldn't afford fish or even vegetables. y There are 54 pagodas in Japan. The official top three pagodas ( ) are those of the Daigo-ji Temple in Ky to, the H ry -ji Temple in Nara, and the Rurik -ji Temple in Yamaguchi. Language & Society y Japan has the highest life expectancy in the world (as of 2009), nominally surpassed by tiny city-states like Andorra and Macau, but by no other proper nation. Japanese people live in average 4 years longer than US citizens, 3 years longer than the Germans, the Belgians or the Brits, 2 years more than the Italians and 1 year longer than the French. y The old Japanese language was a blend of ancient Korean and Ainu language. Since t e 6th century, Chinese characters (and the words h that go with them) were imported into the language, and now amount to about half of the vocabulary in Japanese. y English is the only foreign language taught in public Japanese schools. y There are tens of thousands of English words used daily in modern Japanese (often not understood by the older generation), and the number keeps growing fast year after year. Economy y The world's largest fish market is the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo. y Tokyo Haneda Airport is busiest airport by passenger traffic in Asia, and the fourth busiest in the world. y Japan is the world's 2nd country with the most vehicles per square kilometers after the Netherlands, and just before Belgium. y Despite Japan being the world's second largest economy, Japanese people only enjoy the 17th highest GDP per capita, or 24th when adjusted for PPP. (2009 data) y There are about 1,500 sake ("rice wine") breweries in Japan. y There are over 25,000 love hotels in Japan, generating a staggering 4 trillion yen in revenues per year. y Nintendo started as a playing card maker in 1898. In the 1960's the owners tried to diversify the business by setting up a taxi company, a "love hotel" chain, a TV network and a food company selling "instant rice". It moved into the Japanese toy industry in 1966, and started producing video games in 1977, where it achieved international fame. Despite its success in the high -tech industry and its global market, Nintendo grew and has retained its headquarters in traditional and timeless Kyoto. The name Nintendo itself ( ) could be just as well be mistaken for a Buddhist temple's name. y Restaurants in Tokyo were awarded twice more Michelin stars than those in Paris, making it the culinary capital of the world.Tokyoites can choose where to dine from over 200,000 restaurants - a world record. y Japan is a heavily entertainment-based society, with probably more restaurants, cafs, bars, clubs, karaoke, game centres, manga cafs, massage parlours and relaxation centres per square kilometer than anywhere else on earth. Japan also has the world's largest sex industry. y Japan is the only major country (let's say with a population of over 5 million) that still hunts whales. Whale meat has beenpromoted by the government by adding it to public school menus. Dolphin meat is also eaten in Japan (notably in Shizuoka), but in a much smaller quantity. y Between 1986 and 1990, Japan experienced an asset price bubble, with and and stock prices skyrocketing then crashing. The decline still continues, and real estate prices in Tokyo have now fallen to their early 1980's levels. y Despite its reputation for its rich array of eccentric inventions or useless gadgets, Japan has not invented a lot mainstream products by itself. Its most famous contributions to modern technology are the VHS tape (developed by JVC in 1976), the Compact Disk and the CDROM (both developed by Sony in collaboration with the Dutch company Philips). Sony also invented the now defunct Betamax videocassette and the Mini Disk (MD). Inventions falsely attributed to Japan include the Quartz Watch (invented by the Canadian Warren Marrison, but first commercialised by Seiko in 1969), the walkman (Sony, who claimed the invention in 1979, admitted in 2003that German citizen Andreas Pavel came with the idea 2 years earlier), video games (an invention claimed by both Britain andthe USA), mobile phones (invented by AT&T in 1947), or comic books (first published in Europe in the early 1800's). Geography y 10% of the world's volcanoes are in Japan. Among them, 108 have erupted in the last 10,000 years, 50 in the last 100 years,and 36 are currently active. y Japan is the 60th largest country in the world (out of over 200) in terms of land area. It is 25 times smaller than the USA o People's r Republic of China, but is slightly bigger than Germany, 3 times larger than England, and close to 10 times more spacious than the Netherlands. y Japan is the 10th most populous country in the world*. It's population is equal to the United Kingdom, France and Denmark com bined. y Japan is often seen in the West as an overcrowded country. Yet, it ranks only 18th worldwide in terms of population density, behind such countries as Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Bangladesh, the Netherlands and Belgium. If England was counted as a country (separate from the UK), its density of population would be slightly higher than Japan. Japan's population is 11 times more densely settled than the USA, a density comparable to that of the states of New Jersey or Rhode Island. y Mount Fuji (3,776 m) is the 4th most prominent peak in Asia outside the Himalayan range (the three others are in Indonesia and Malaysia). y Apart from the four main islands, Japan is composed of over 3,000 smaller isles. y Japan has 29,751 km of coastlines, the 6th longest of any country.