Jumat, 28 Mei 2010

Japan



Location

Japan is located in Eastern Asia, but Japan is an island so it is in the North Pacific Ocean. It is also located east of the Korean peninsula.
Four Main Islands
Japan has more than 1000 islands, but there are 4 main islands. Honshu is the largest island in Japan. It holds 80 percent of the population. The island also has the capital of Japan, Tokyo. Tokyo is also the largest city in Japan. Honshu also has the famous peak, Mount Fuji.

Hokkaido is the northernmost island in Japan. It holds 5 percent of the population. This island has the coldest weather since it is in the north. The island also has the lowest land in Japan called the Ishikari Plain. Hokkaido is known for its rolling hills.

Kyushu is the southernmost island in Japan. Even though it is a small island it is heavily populated. It holds 11 percent of the population. Kyushu is the most rugged island in Japan. Kyushu also has many volcanoes.

Shikoku is the smallest island in Japan. It holds 1 percent of the population. The island is best for its farming regions. It has many woodlands and beautiful bodies of water.

Size

The island is slightly smaller than the size of California. The coastline is about 29,751 km. The total area of Japan is 377,835 sq km. The land area of Japan is 374,744 sq km.

Climate

The Climate of Japan varies like in the south it feels like tropical, but in the north it feels cold and breezy.

There are a lot of earthquake that occur in Japan. Japan has lots of earthquakes because it Japan lies on an unstable part of the crust. When the crust moves it causes an earthquake. About 1000 earthquakes occur each year.

Earthquakes also cause tsunamis. A tsunami is a huge wave, kind of a tidal wave. Typhoons are also a big factor in Japan. Since Japan is an island a lot of typhoons and hurricanes occur. They both occur in the summer. The heavy rains and winds usually destroy the crops.

Massive rains occur in Japan occur a lot of times. The rain usually causes huge year totals. Some places have 40 inches of rain per year. The rainy season is fall. Monsoons also affect Japan’s climate. Monsoons are seasonal winds that come from the Sea of Japan. In winter many monsoons bring cold weather. They also occur in summer it brings warm, moist air, and that is why the southern islands are hot.

Mountains

There are a lot of mountains in Japan. Seventy percent of Japan is mountains and hills. Most of the mountains are volcanoes. The reason there is a lot of mountains is because of the earthquakes.

Population (2009 est.): 127,078,679 (growth rate: -0.1%); birth rate: 7.6/1000; infant mortality rate: 2.8/1000; life expectancy: 82.1; density per sq km: 339

Capital and largest city (2003 est.):

Tokyo, 35,327,000 (metro. area), 8,483,050 (city proper)

Other large cities: Yokohama, 3,494,900 (part of Tokyo metro. area); Osaka, 11,286,000 (metro. area), 2,597,000 (city proper); Nagoya, 2,189,700; Sapporo, 1,848,000; Kobe, 1,529,900 (part of Osaka metro. area); Kyoto, 1,470,600 (part of Osaka metro. area); Fukuoka, 1,368,900; Kawasaki, 1,276,200 (part of Tokyo metro. area); Hiroshima, 1,132,700

Monetary unit: Yen

Government

Constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary government.


History

Legend attributes the creation of Japan to the sun goddess, from whom the emperors were descended. The first of them was Jimmu, supposed to have ascended the throne in 660 B.C. , a tradition that constituted official doctrine until 1945.

Recorded Japanese history begins in approximately A.D. 400, when the Yamato clan, eventually based in Kyoto, managed to gain control of other family groups in central and western Japan. Contact with Korea introduced Buddhism to Japan at about this time. Through the 700s Japan was much influenced by China, and the Yamato clan set up an imperial court similar to that of China. In the ensuing centuries, the authority of the imperial court was undermined as powerful gentry families vied for control.

At the same time, warrior clans were rising to prominence as a distinct class known as samurai. In 1192, the Minamoto clan set up a military government under their leader, Yoritomo. He was designated shogun (military dictator). For the following 700 years, shoguns from a succession of clans ruled in Japan, while the imperial court existed in relative obscurity.

First contact with the West came in about 1542, when a Portuguese ship off course arrived in Japanese waters. Portuguese traders, Jesuit missionaries, and Spanish, Dutch, and English traders followed. Suspicious of Christianity and of Portuguese support of a local Japanese revolt, the shoguns of the Tokugawa period (1603–1867) prohibited all trade with foreign countries; only a Dutch trading post at Nagasaki was permitted. Western attempts to renew trading relations failed until 1853, when Commodore Matthew Perry sailed an American fleet into Tokyo Bay. Trade with the West was forced upon Japan under terms less than favorable to the Japanese. Strife caused by these actions brought down the feudal world of the shoguns. In 1868, the emperor Meiji came to the throne, and the shogun system was abolished.

Japan Expands Its Empire

Japan quickly made the transition from a medieval to a modern power. An imperial army was established with conscription, and parliamentary government was formed in 1889. The Japanese began to take steps to extend their empire. After a brief war with China in 1894–1895, Japan acquired Formosa (Taiwan), the Pescadores Islands, and part of southern Manchuria. China also recognized the independence of Korea (Chosen), which Japan later annexed (1910).

In 1904–1905, Japan defeated Russia in the Russo-Japanese War, gaining the territory of southern Sakhalin (Karafuto) and Russia's port and rail rights in Manchuria. In World War I, Japan seized Germany's Pacific islands and leased areas in China. The Treaty of Versailles then awarded Japan a mandate over the islands.

Japan Economy

Japan is a mountainous, volcanic island nation in East Asia, on the Pacific Ocean. China, Taiwan, Russia, North Korea and South Korea are its neighboring countries. Japan is popularly called the "Land of the Rising Sun" as the characters in its name mean "sun-origin". Japan is made of up 6,852 islands, most of which are mountainous (some even volcanic). Tokyo is the world’s largest metropolitan area and home to 30 million people. Japan is the 10th most populated country in the world, with around 128 million residents. The country boasts a modern and extensive military force that aims at self-defense and peace promotion. The standard of living is one of the highest in the world, with the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate.

Japan Economy: Till Date

The world’s second-largest economy only after the US and Asia’s largest economy, Japan is a powerful country. It is the only member of G8 from Asia and also a member of the UN Security Council on a temporary basis. The wages in Tokyo are the highest in the world, according to the Big Mac Index. Japan’s swift economic growth from the 1960s to the 1980s is called the Japanese post-war economic miracle, with a growth rate of 10%, 5% and 4%. It was in the late 1980s that Japan’s economy overheated due to falling stock and real estate prices, a phase called the Japanese asset price bubble. However, the situation turned bad in 1989, with the crashing of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Even in the 1990s the country’s economic growth remained slow. During that period there was only a 1.5% rise in the GDP annually. Moreover, in the 2000s, Japan’s GDP rose at 0.8% annually. The economy rose at an average of 2.1% a year from 2003 to 07, and shrank by 1.2% in 2008 and by 5.0% in 2009.

Japan Economic Profile: Statistics

GDP (purchasing power parity):

GDP (official exchange rate):

$5.049 trillion (2009 est.)

GDP - real growth rate:

  • -5.7% (2009 est.)

  • -0.7% (2008 est.)

  • 2.3% (2007 est.)

GDP - per capita (PPP):

  • $32,600 (2009 est.)

  • $34,500 (2008 est.)

  • $34,700 (2007 est.)


Inflation rate (consumer prices):

  • -1.3% (2009 est.)

  • 1.4% (2008 est.)

Population: 127,430,000 (2010 est.)

  • Labor force: 65.93 million (2009 est.)

  • Unemployment rate: 5.6% (2009 est.)




SOCIALIZATION

Infant Care. Infants and young children are doted on, and child rearing is a considered a very important responsibility for women in their twenties and thirties. Many women give birth to their first child after little more than a year of marriage, and married couples without children are uncommon.

Child Rearing and Education. Child rearing involves a high degree of physical and emotional interaction between mother and child; fathers are less involved. Traditionally, sons were favored over daughters, and the oldest son was raised quite differently from the other sons. Particularly close bonds between oldest sons and their mothers were not uncommon. In modern urban nuclear families, close psychological ties between mothers and children are extremely common.

Childhood socialization is guided by the widespread belief that a child is a passive and malleable being; innate talent or ability is less important than is its being properly shaped, particularly by maternal influences. These attitudes carry over into the early years of education. Differentiation of students by academic ability does not take place until the end of elementary school, and the emphasis in primary education is on social integration, self-discipline, and the fundamental skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Responsibility for curriculum standards and textbook approval lies with the Ministry of Education, which must approve public and private educational institutions. There are two levels of pre-school: nursery school from about three years of age and kindergarten from about five years of age. Compulsory education begins at about age six with elementary school, which lasts for six years, followed by three years of middle school. Mandatory education ends with middle school, but most students go on to high school.

Entrance examinations are generally are required for admission to all levels of private schools and for public schools beyond elementary school. At better schools, these exams can be extremely competitive. In preparation for college entrance examinations, sometimes for high school, and occasionally even at lower levels, a student may leave school to devote an entire year to studying at an examination academy.

The examination system is a source of anxiety for children and their families (pushy mothers are dubbed "education mamas"). Bullying among students is a common problem. A related problem is the reintegration of students who have studied overseas.

Higher Education. Half of high school graduates receive an advanced education. There are 165 public and 460 private universities and four-year colleges and almost 600 two-year colleges. A college degree is a prerequisite for most middle-class occupations, and many companies formally restrict their recruiting to graduates of specific universities. This creates enormous pressure to enter top-ranked schools. High schools are evaluated in terms of their success in placing their graduates prestigious universities. For many students, college is seen as an opportunity to take a break from years of preparation for examinations, and college life often is regarded as a relaxing interlude before one starts a career.

RELIGION

Religious Beliefs. Shintō is the contemporary term for a system of gods and beliefs about the relationship between people, the natural environment, and the state. Shintō teaches that Japan is uniquely the land of the gods. The religion has no formal dogma or scripture. During much of Japanese history, Shintō and Buddhism have coexisted and influenced each other. Shintō is closely linked to the imperial family and a nationalist ideology.

Buddhism was introduced into Japan from Korea and China during the sixth century A.D. It consists of two major branches, known as Teravada and Mahayana Buddhism. Teravada Buddhism, in general, is the branch practiced in South Asia, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia, and Mahayana is the branch that influenced Chinese, Korean, and Japanese civilizations. In essence, Teravada (a Sanskrit term meaning "the lesser or smaller vessel") teaches that salvation is available only to an elect few, those who strive to achieve enlightenment and practice good works that will enhance one's ability to transcend the snares of mortal existence. The Teravada tradition emphasizes monastic communities.

The light of dawn falls on a sign at the Tsukiji Fish Market during a tuna auction. Japanese did not become a written language until the sixth century, when Chinese orthography was introduced.
The light of dawn falls on a sign at the Tsukiji Fish Market during a tuna auction. Japanese did not become a written language until the sixth century, when Chinese orthography was introduced.



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