Japan

Japan[a] is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea in the south. The Japanese archipelago consists of four major islands and thousands of smaller islands, covering 377,975 square kilometers (145,937 sq mi). Divided into 47 administrative prefectures and eight traditional regions, about three-quarters of the country’s terrain is mountainous and heavily forested, concentrating its agriculture and highly urbanized population along its eastern coastal plains. With a population of over 123 million as of 2025, Japan is the eleventh-most populous country. Its capital and largest city is Tokyo.

The first known habitation of the archipelago dates to the Upper Paleolithic, with the beginning of the Japanese Paleolithic dating to c. 36,000 BC. Between the fourth and sixth centuries, its kingdoms were united under an emperor in Nara, and later Heian-kyō. From the 12th century, actual power was held by military dictators (shōgun) and feudal lords (daimyō), and enforced by warrior nobility (samurai). After rule by the Kamakura and Ashikaga shogunates and a century of warring states, Japan was unified in 1600 by the Tokugawa shogunate, which implemented an isolationist foreign policy. In 1853, a United States fleet forced Japan to open trade to the West, which led to the end of the shogunate and the restoration of imperial power in 1868. — Wikipedia