List of regions of Japan

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Map of the regions of Japan. From northeast to southwest: Hokkaidō (red), Tōhoku (yellow), Kantō (green), Chūbu (cyan), Kansai (blue), Chūgoku (orange), Shikoku (purple) and Kyūshū & Okinawa (grey).

Japan is traditionally divided into eight regions. They are not official administrative units, but are used for regional division of Japan in a number of contexts. For instance, 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, Tōhoku University, etc.).

Each region groups several of the country's 47 prefectures, except for the region of Hokkaidō which corresponds to Hokkaidō Prefecture. Of the four main islands of Japan, three make up a region each while the largest island of Honshū is divided into five regions. Okinawa Prefecture is usually included in Kyūshū, but is sometimes treated as its own ninth Okinawa region.[citation needed]

While Japan has eight High Courts, their jurisdictions do not correspond to the eight traditional regions below. (See Judicial system of Japan for details).

Table

Region Population Area in km2[1] Prefectures contained
Hokkaidō 5.4 million[2] 83,000 Hokkaidō
Tōhoku 8.91 million[3] 67,000 Akita, Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi, Yamagata
Kantō 43.2 million[4] 32,000 Chiba, Gunma, Ibaraki, Kanagawa, Saitama, Tochigi, Tōkyō
Chūbu 21.4 million[5] 67,000 Aichi, Fukui, Gifu, Ishikawa, Nagano,
Niigata, Shizuoka, Toyama, Yamanashi
Kansai (also
known as Kinki)
22.5 million[6] 33,000 Hyōgo, Kyōto, Mie, Nara, Ōsaka, Shiga, Wakayama
Chūgoku 7.4 million[7] 32,000 Hiroshima, Okayama, Shimane, Tottori, Yamaguchi
Shikoku 3.8 million[8] 19,000 Ehime, Kagawa, Kōchi, Tokushima
Kyūshū 14.5 million[9] 44,000 Fukuoka, Kagoshima, Kumamoto,
Miyazaki, Nagasaki, Ōita, Okinawa, Saga

Regions and islands

This is a list of Japan's major islands, traditional regions, and subregions, going from northeast to southwest.[10][11] The eight traditional regions are marked in bold.

See also

References

External links

Media related to Regions of Japan at Wikimedia Commons