page_title: Geography of Japan
section_title: Regions
hierarchical_section_title: Geography of Japan / Regions
caption_attribution_description: English: Regions and prefectures of Japan. Deutsch: Regionen und Präfekturen Japans.
context_page_description: Japan is an island country comprising a stratovolcanic archipelago over 3,000 km along East Asia's Pacific coast. It consists of 6,852 islands. The 5 main islands are Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku and Okinawa. There are 6,847 remote islands. The Ryukyu Islands and Nanpō Islands are south and east of the main islands.
  The territory covers 377,975.24 km². It is the 4th largest island country in the world and the largest island country in East Asia. The country has the 6th longest coastline at 29,751 km and the 8th largest Exclusive Economic Zone of 4,470,000 km² in the world.
  The terrain is mostly rugged and mountainous with 66% forest. The population is clustered in urban areas on the coast, plains and valleys. Japan is located in the northwestern Ring of Fire on multiple tectonic plates. East of the Japanese archipelago are three oceanic trenches. The Japan Trench is created as the oceanic Pacific Plate subducts beneath the continental Okhotsk Plate. The continuous subduction process causes frequent earthquakes, tsunami and stratovolcanoes. The islands are also affected by typhoons.
context_section_description: Japan is informally divided into eight regions from northeast (Hokkaidō) to southwest (Ryukyu Islands):
  Hokkaidō
  Tōhoku region
  Kantō region
  Chūbu region
  Kansai (or Kinki) region
  Chūgoku region
  Shikoku
  Kyūshū
  Each region contains several prefectures, except the Hokkaido region, which comprises only Hokkaido Prefecture.
  The regions are not official administrative units, but have been traditionally used as the regional division of Japan in a number of contexts. For example, maps and geography textbooks divide Japan into the eight regions, weather reports usually give the weather by region, and many businesses and institutions use their home region as part of their name (Kinki Nippon Railway, Chūgoku Bank, Tohoku University, etc.). While Japan has eight High Courts, their jurisdictions do not correspond with the eight regions.
caption: Regions and prefectures of Japan
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