Japan is a country of Asia. Its official name is States of Japan. Its area is 377835 sq kilometers and population is 126.5 million. Tokyo is the capital of Japan. It`s per capita income is $34692. Japan has high average age in the world 83.2 years.
Japan is an island nation in East Asia and located in the Pacific Ocean,its total area 3,77,835 and it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters that make up Japan’s name mean “sun-origin”, which is why Japan is often referred to as the “Land of the Rising Sun”.
Unitary Parliamentary Constitutional Monarchy
The State of Japan
Japanese is principle language and the number of individual languages listed for Japan is 15. All are living languages. Of these, 1 is institutional, 1 is developing, 1 is vigorous, 11 are in trouble, and 1 is dying.
There Non-believers in the majority (63%), followed by Buddhists (26%), Shintoists (2%) and Christians (1%).
As 2014 , the total GDP is $ 4.835 billion and per capita is $ 38,053.
Japan has a long history with the first humans arriving around 35,000 B.C. During the Jomon period , which began around 10,000 B.C. , the inhabitants of japan lived by fishing , hunting and gathering . In the Jayoi period, beginning around 300Bc , rice cultivation was introduced from the Korean peninsula. The first historical documents mentioning Japan date to around the 4th century. During the kofun period (300-710), ancestors of the present imperial family established Japan’s first unified state. Emperor jimmu was the first emperor of an imperial line that is still in place today.
The Nara period (710-794)was characterized by continued importation of Chinese culture and the spread of Buddhism. Nara was the first centralized capital of the Nation established in the late 8th century .The following Hein period (794-1185) by an affluent aristocracy with eccentric social customs and the moving of the capital from Nara to Kyoto .Toward the end of the hein period , the aristocracy lost their power and the kamakura period (1185-1333) marked the beginning of military rule . During this period, a caste system developed with the shogun at the top,the position that sometimes wieled more power than the Emperor. After a succession of powerful shogun, Japan fell into a state of anarchy during Muromachi period (1333-1568) as provinces declared war upon one another. The onion wars (1467-77) was the most bloody and chaotic moment of the period, and destruction was wide spread.
In 1600 during the Azuchi-Momoyama period (1568-1600), Tokugawa shogunate. Under the Tokugawa shogunate the feudalist system was re-established. Tokugawa ruled from Edo, the location of present day Tokyo .so it is called Edo period (1600-1868). The sakoku policy, literal translation “locked country”, enacted in 1633 by the Tokugawa Shogunate prevented foreigners from entering Japan on penalty death . The same policy also prevented Japanese from leaving Japan.
In 1867, the Tokugawa shogunate collapsed, and gave way to the Meiji Restoration (1868-1912). The imperial capital was moved from Kyoto to Tokyo, renamed from Edo to Tokyo. From this time on, Japanese history would be devided into periods in accord with the reign of an individual emperor .
Japan then directed their efforts toward industrialization and modernization.
Japan’s victories in the Sino-Japanese war in 1895 and Russo-japanese war enabled it to assume the stance of a modern, imperialistic world power .korea was colonized by the Japanese in 1910.
During the First World War( WW1), USA and Japan fought on the same side although relations were not favorable between two nations due to policy disagreements over china and competition for power in the Pacific.
After WW1,J apan’s economy combined with domestic political turmoil .
Ultimately, contributed to the increased militarism in Japan during the late 1920 s and 1930s . by the mid 1920s , imperial Japan had extended itself further into Manchuria and a full scale invasion in china was underway by the mid 1930s.
Japanese imperialist policy aimed to dominate china to acquire its vast material reserves and natural resources .In the early 1930s there were many small –scale military engagements between the two sides. This culminated into a full scale war in 1937. During WW11, us entered the war in 1942 after the surprise attack on pearl Harbor by Japanese forces. In 1945, atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima on 6th August and Nagasaki on 9th August by US forces and Japan surrendered soon after ward.
Post war Japan was occupied for seven years (1945-1952) by Allied forces under USA. During this period a new, democratic constitution was adopted, business re-oriented to peace time objectives and the country rebuilt itself after the devastating war Japanese government shifted from imperia and military rule to parliamentary democracy .
Through hard work and determination, Japan re-invented itself in the latter half of the twentienth century as a consumer oriented producer. It early on took the lead in transistor electronics and innovative automobile design. By the late 1980s, Japan was the largest creditor nation or earth ,while the US was the largest debtor. with the spread of film ,radio ,computer games and other electronics devices, Japanese popular pop culture has a world wide influence.
Today, despite posseoing very little natural resources, Japan has become an economic and technological power house.