|
Honshu (Honshu) is the largest island of
Japan, called the Mainland; it is south of Hokkaido across the Tsugaru
Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and north-east of Kyushu
across the Shimonoseki Strait.
The island is roughly 1300 km long and ranges from 50 to 240 km wide, and
its total area is 230,500 km², around 60% of the total area of Japan. It has
5450 km of coastline. It is mountainous and volcanic, with frequent
earthquakes (the Great Kanto earthquake heavily damaged Tokyo in September
1923); the highest peak is Mount Fuji at 3,776 m. There are many rivers,
including the Shinano, Japan's longest. The climate is highly variable from
the cool north to the subtropical south.
The population is 98,352,000 (as of 1990,
89,101,702 (1975), concentrated in the available lowlands, notably in the
Kanto plain where 25% of the total population reside in and around Tokyo and
Yokohama. Other cities include Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, Hiroshima, Akita, and
Nagoya. The island is nominally divided into five regions and contains 34
prefectures, including metropolitan Tokyo.
Honshu is connected to the other islands
by tunnels or bridges. Three new bridge systems have been built across the
islands of the Inland Sea between Honshu and Shikoku (Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge
and the Ohnaruto Bridge; Shin-Onomichi Bridge, Innoshima Bridge, Ikuchi
Bridge, Tatara Bridge, Ohmishima Bridge, Hakata-Ohshima Bridges, and the
First, Second and Third Kurushima-Kaikyo Bridge; Shimotsui-Seto Bridge,
Hitsuishijima Bridge, Iwakurojima Bridge, Yoshima Bridge, Kita Bisan-Seto
Bridge, and the Minami Bisan-Seto Bridge), and the Seikan Tunnel connects
Honshu with Hokkaido.
The regions are:
Chubu (central),
Chugoku
(southern),
Kanto (eastern),
Kinki (a.k.a Kansai, southern, above Chugoku), and
Tohoku
(northern).
The prefectures are:
Aichi-ken,
Fukui-ken,
Gifu-ken,
Ishikawa-ken,
Nagano-ken,
Niigata-ken,
Toyama-ken,
Shizuoka-ken,
Yamanashi-ken,
Hiroshima-ken,
Okayama-ken,
Shimane-ken,
Tottori-ken,
Yamaguchi-ken,
Chiba-ken,
Gunma-ken,
Ibaraki-ken,
Kanagawa-ken,
Saitama-ken,
Tochigi-ken,
Tokyo-to,
Hyogo-ken,
Kyoto-fu,
Mie-ken,
Nara-ken,
Osaka-fu,
Shiga-ken,
Wakayama-ken,
Akita-ken,
Aomori-ken,
Fukushima-ken,
Iwate-ken,
Miyagi-ken &
Yamagata-ken.
|
