Japan

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27/04/2011 |
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JAPAN

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters that make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin", which is why Japan issometimes referred to as the "Land of the Rising Sun".
Japan is an archipelago of 6,852 islands. The four largest islands are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, together accounting for ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area. Japan has the world's tenth-largest population, with over 127 million people.
The first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD.Influence from other nations followed by long periods of isolation has characterized Japan's history. Since adopting its revised constitution in 1947, Japan has maintained a unitary constitutional monarchy with an emperor and an elected parliament called the Diet.
A major economic power, Japan has the world's third-largest economy. It is also the world's fourth largest exporter and fourth largestimporter. Although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains an extensive modern military force in self-defense and peacekeeping roles. After Singapore, Japan has the lowest homicide (including attempted homicide) rate in the world. Besides, Japan has the longest life expectancy of any country in the world and the third lowest infant mortality rate.

GEOGRAPHY

About 73percent of Japan is forested, mountainous, and unsuitable for agricultural, industrial, or residential use. As a result, the habitable zones, mainly located in coastal areas, have extremely high population densities. Japan is one of the most densely populated countries in the world.
The islands of Japan are located in a volcanic zone on the Pacific Ring of Fire. They are primarily the result oflarge oceanic movements occurring over hundreds of millions of years from the mid-Silurian to the Pleistocene as a result of the subduction of the Philippine Sea Plate beneath the continental Amurian Plate and Okinawa Plate to the south, and subduction of the Pacific Plate under the Okhotsk Plate to the north. Japan was originally attached to the eastern coast of the Eurasian continent. Thesubducting plates pulled Japan eastward, opening the Sea of Japan around 15 million years ago. Japan has 108 active volcanoes. Destructive earthquakes, often resulting in tsunamis, occur several times each century. The 1923 Tokyo earthquake killed over 140,000 people. The most recent major quakes are the 2004 Chūetsu earthquake and the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, a 9.0-magnitude quake which hit Japan on March11, 2011, and triggered a tsunami.
FOOD
Japanese food is a refined as any of the great cuisines of the world, but alongside the elegant fare is the humble bowl of rice and the heritage of simple country cooking. The traditional Japanese diet is not doubt one of the healthiest in the world and thankfully tofu, miso, sushi, green tea and soba are now familiar to many people outside of Japan.The typical Japanese meal consists of a bowl of rice (gohan), a bowl of miso soup (miso shiru), pickled vegetables (tsukemono) and fish or meat. While rice is the staple food, several kinds of noodles (udon, soba and ramen) are cheap and very popular for light meals. As an island nation, the Japanese take great pride in their seafood. A wide variety of fish, squid, octopus, eel, and shellfishappear in all kinds of dishes from sushi to tempura.
LANGUAJE
The written language of Japan is a combination of Chinese derived ideograms (Kanji) and phonetic syllabary (Kana - also derived from Chinese ideograms - just not quite as directly as the Kanji). With 1945 Jouyou Kanji and 92 Kana (not counting the variations created by dakuten and handakuten diacritical marks which add 25 more...