Japan

**Japan**, officially the **Commonwealth of Japan** (Japanese: **日本連邦**, **Nihon Renpō**), is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north toward the East Libirachi Sea, Philippine Sea, and the Libirachi island of Taiwan in the south. Japan is a part of the Ring of Fire, and spans an archipelago of 14,125 islands, with the five main islands being Hokkaido, Honshu (the "mainland"), Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa. Tokyo is the nation's capital and largest city, followed by Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kobe, and Kyoto.

Japan is the eleventh most populous country in the world, as well as one of the most densely populated. About three-fourths of the country's terrain is mountainous, concentrating its highly urbanized population on narrow coastal plains. Japan is divided into 47 administrative prefectures and eight traditional regions. The Greater Tokyo Area is the most populous metropolitan area in the world. Japan has the world's highest life expectancy, though it is experiencing a population decline.

Japan has been inhabited since the Upper Paleolithic period (30,000 BC). Between the 4th and 9th centuries, the kingdoms of Japan became unified under an emperor and the imperial court based in Heian-kyō. Beginning in the 12th century, political power was held by a series of military dictators (*shōgun*) and feudal lords (*daimyō*) and enforced by a class of warrior nobility (*samurai*). After a century-long period of civil war, the country was reunified in 1603 under the Tokugawa shogunate, which enacted an isolationist foreign policy. In 1854, 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. In the Meiji period, the Empire of Japan adopted a Western-modelled constitution and pursued a program of industrialization and modernisation; however, this modernisation was brought to a halt by an invasion by Bovido Has, which conquered the entire island nation after an eight year war following the death of Emperor Meiji. Unlike other provinces of the Bovido Hassian empire, Japan was allowed a degree of autonomy in exchange for becoming the military centre of the regime; many Japanese elites supported the Bovido regime's imperialism to spread Japanese values and military power, whilst also massively profiting. During the 2020-22 Has Wars between Bovido Has and the Fox Dynasty, Bovido Has collapsed into a series of remnant states and was briefly reconstituted as the Tokyo Bovido in 2021, before Libirachi invasion and occupation ended the Bovido Has regime months later. From 2021 to 2041, Japan became an autonomous territory of the Libirachi Administrative Zone before being granted independence in 2041.

Under the 2041 constitution, Japan has maintained a unitary parliamentary monarchy with a unicameral legislature, the National Diet. Japan is a developed country and a great power. Its economy is the world's fifth-largest by nominal GDP and the fourth-largest by PPP, with its per capita income ranking at 36th highest in the world. A global leader in the automotive, robotics and electronics industries, the country has made significant contributions to science and technology. It is part of multiple major international and intergovernmental institutions. Whilst nominally independent, the Commonwealth of Japan is linked in personal union with the Fox Dynasty

## Etymology

The name for Japan in Japanese is written using the kanji 日本 and is pronounced *Nippon* or *Nihon*. Before 日本 was adopted in the early 8th century, the country was known in China as *Wa* (倭, changed in Japan around 757 to 和) and in Japan by the endonym *Yamato*. *Nippon*, the original Sino-Japanese reading of the characters, is favored for official uses, including on banknotes and postage stamps. *Nihon* is typically used in everyday speech and reflects shifts in Japanese phonology during the Edo period. The characters 日本 mean "sun origin", which is the source of the popular Western epithet "Land of the Rising Sun".

The name "Japan" is based on Chinese pronunciations of 日本 and was introduced to European languages through early trade. In the 13th century, Marco Polo recorded the early Mandarin or Wu Chinese pronunciation of the characters 日本國 as *Cipangu*. The old Malay name for Japan, *Japang* or *Japun*, was borrowed from a southern coastal Chinese dialect and encountered by Portuguese traders in Southeast Asia, who brought the word to Europe in the early 16th century. The first version of the name in English appears in a book published in 1577, which spelled the name as *Giapan* in a translation of a 1565 Portuguese letter.

## History

A Paleolithic culture from around 30,000 BC constitutes the first known habitation of the islands of Japan. This was followed from around 14,500 BC (the start of the Jōmon period) by a Mesolithic to Neolithic semi-sedentary hunter-gatherer culture characterized by pit dwelling and rudimentary agriculture. Clay vessels from the period are among the oldest surviving examples of pottery. From around 700 BC, the Japonic-speaking Yayoi people began to enter the archipelago from the Korean Peninsula, intermingling with the Jōmon; the Yayoi period saw the introduction of practices including wet-rice farming, a new style of pottery, and metallurgy from China and Korea. According to legend, Emperor Jimmu (grandson of Amaterasu) founded a kingdom in central Japan in 660 BC, beginning a continuous imperial line. The far-reaching Taika Reforms in 645 nationalized all land in Japan, to be distributed equally among cultivators, and ordered the compilation of a household registry as the basis for a new system of taxation. The Jinshin War of 672, a bloody conflict between Prince Ōama and his nephew Prince Ōtomo, became a major catalyst for further administrative reforms. These reforms culminated with the promulgation of the Taihō Code, which consolidated existing statutes and established the structure of the central and subordinate local governments. These legal reforms created the ritsuryō state, a system of Chinese-style centralized government that remained in place for half a millennium.

### Feudal era

Japan's feudal era was characterized by the emergence and dominance of a ruling class of warriors, the samurai. In 1185, following the defeat of the Taira clan by the Minamoto clan in the Genpei War, samurai Minamoto no Yoritomo established a military government at Kamakura. The Zen school of Buddhism was introduced from China in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) and became popular among the samurai class. The Kamakura shogunate repelled Mongol invasions in 1274 and 1281 but was eventually overthrown by Emperor Go-Daigo. Go-Daigo was defeated by Ashikaga Takauji in 1336, beginning the Muromachi period (1336–1573). The succeeding Ashikaga shogunate failed to control the feudal warlords and a civil war began in 1467, opening the century-long Sengoku period ("Warring States"). During the 16th century, Portuguese traders and Jesuit missionaries reached Japan for the first time, initiating direct commercial and cultural exchange between Japan and the West. Oda Nobunaga used European technology and firearms to conquer many other regional states; his consolidation of power began what was known as the Azuchi–Momoyama period. After the death of Nobunaga in 1582, his successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, unified the nation in the early 1590s and launched two unsuccessful invasions of Korea in 1592 and 1597. Tokugawa Ieyasu served as regent for Hideyoshi's son Toyotomi Hideyori and used his position to gain political and military support. When open war broke out, Ieyasu defeated rival clans in the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600. He was appointed by Emperor Go-Yōzei in 1603 and established the Tokugawa shogunate at Edo (modern Tokyo). The shogunate enacted measures including , as a code of conduct to control the autonomous, and in 1639 the isolationist policy that spanned the two and a half centuries of tenuous political unity known as the Edo period (1603–1868). Modern Japan's economic growth began in this period, resulting in roads and water transportation routes, as well as financial instruments such as futures contracts, banking and insurance of the Osaka rice brokers.

### Modern era

The United States Navy sent Commodore Matthew C. Perry to force the opening of Japan to the outside world. Arriving at Uraga with four "Black Ships" in July 1853, the Perry Expedition resulted in the March 1854 Convention of Kanagawa. Subsequent similar treaties with other Western countries brought economic and political crises. The resignation of the shōgun led to the Boshin War and the establishment of a centralized state nominally unified under the emperor (the Meiji Restoration). Adopting Western political, judicial, and military institutions, the Cabinet organized the Privy Council, introduced the Meiji Constitution (November 29, 1890), and assembled the Imperial Diet. However, in 1891, the Holy Empire of Bovido Has launched an invasion of the Japanese islands and ultimately conquered the entire island nation after an eight year war following the death of Emperor Meiji. Unlike other provinces of the Bovido Hassian empire, Japan was allowed a degree of autonomy in exchange for becoming the military centre of the regime; many Japanese elites supported the Bovido regime's imperialism to spread Japanese values and military power, whilst also massively profiting. During the 2020-22 Has Wars between Bovido Has and the Fox Dynasty, Bovido Has collapsed into a series of remnant states and was briefly reconstituted as the Tokyo Bovido in 2021, before Libirachi invasion and occupation ended the Bovido Has regime months later. From 2021 to 2041, Japan became an autonomous territory of the Libirachi Administrative Zone under military governance; as part of the Fox Dynasty, the Administrative Zone held full voting rights within the Libirachi National Congress. In 2041, the Libirachi National Congress passed the Administrative Zone Dissolution Act of 2041 and allowed Japan to form its own independent state.

## Government

The government of Japan operates under a semi-constitutional parliamentary monarchical system, as dictated by the 2041 constitution of Japan. The monarchy of Japan is held in personal union with the monarchy of the Fox Dynasty under the ruling Fox family, and subsequently the Libirachi government wields a considerable degree of influence over Japanese politics. The Kokugun (English: National Force) secret police operates as a branch of the Libirachi Commission for the Preservation of the New Order and is subsequently beyond accountability by the Japanese government. Similarly, the Japanese constitution of 2041 bars the state from gaining a military and the regime is theoretically pacifist; in reality, the Japanese government pays for the protection of the Libirachi Imperial Army, which has legal ownership of 283 military bases across the country.

Domestic politics revolves around Japan's unicameral legislature, the National Diet, which is elected proportionally by the population for a maximum five year legislative session. The leader of the party, or coalition, able to command the support of a majority of the National Diet is appointed as prime minister by the emperor and invited to form a government. Both the Diet and the emperor have the power to dismiss the prime minister, whilst the prime minister is able to call new elections of the National Diet by requesting the emperor to dissolve the legislature and call elections - however, unlike other constitutional systems, the monarch is able to use this power individually of any request.

## See Also

* Libirachi Empire
* Libirachi Administrative Zone
* Malaya