James Baquet

The Japanese archipelago lies to the east of the Asian mainland. Its northern stretches are even with Russia. North and South Korea are west of the main island; and the southern islands are directly across the sea from Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian and Taiwan in China. As such, the nation’s environments range from the snowy north to the tropical southern islands.

Though Japan claims over 6,000 islands, many of them are merely uninhabited rocks. The four main islands — north to south, Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu — have the bulk of the population, together being home to all but a half-million or so of the nation’s roughly 127 million people. Honshu alone, the largest island (seventh-largest in the world) — on which the capital of Tokyo and most of Japan’s industry is located — has some 104 million people.

Though Tokyo proper is only the world’s 12th-largest city (five Chinese cities are larger, as well as six in other countries), its conurbation with nearly 37 million people is the world’s largest, though Sao Paulo in Brazil lags only 80,000 or so behind.

The Japanese population is relatively homogeneous, with 98.5 percent being ethnically Japanese. Other ethnic groups include the 25,000 or so Ainu indigenous in Hokkaido in the north, and 1.3 million Ryukyuan people living in their native Okinawa (with more living in diaspora). The language of these latter is considered the only member of the Japonic family besides Japanese itself. There is also a small presence of immigrants from China, Korea and the Philippines, as well as foreign workers from other countries.

Since the end of the Second World War, Japan has been a constitutional monarchy in which the emperor is only a figurehead. The government is led by a prime minister, and laws are made by a legislative body called the Diet.

One interesting fact about Japanese culture is the rapid aging of its population. The post-war “baby boom” was followed by declining birthrates. By 2012, nearly a quarter of the people were over 65 years old; this is predicted to be nearly 40 percent by the year 2050.

Vocabulary:

Which word above means:

1. native, born in a place

2. person with symbolic power only

3. after World War II

4. most

5. going down, reducing

6. number of babies born in a period

7. foretold, said will happen

8. large number of births in a short period

9. dispersion of a population

10. group of adjacent cities