The is an

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands. An archipelago may be in an ocean, a sea, or a smaller body of water. Example archipelagos include the Aegean Islands (the o ...

of 14,125 islands that form the country of

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. It extends over from the Sea of Okhotsk in the northeast to the

East China East China () is a geographical region in the People’s Republic of China, mainly consisting of seven province-level administrative divisions, namely the provinces (from north to south) Shandong, Jiangsu, Anhui, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian, ...

and Philippine seas in the southwest along the Pacific coast of the

Eurasia Eurasia ( , ) is a continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. According to some geographers, Physical geography, physiographically, Eurasia is a single supercontinent. The concept of Europe and Asia as distinct continents d ...

n continent, and consists of three

island arc Island arcs are long archipelago, chains of active volcanoes with intense earthquake, seismic activity found along convergent boundary, convergent plate tectonics, tectonic plate boundaries. Most island arcs originate on oceanic crust and have re ...

s from north to south: the Northeastern Japan Arc, the Southwestern Japan Arc, and the Ryukyu Island Arc. The

Daitō Islands The are an archipelago consisting of three isolated coral islands, administered by Japan, in the Philippine Sea southeast of Okinawa Prefecture, Okinawa. The islands have a total area of and a population of 2,107. Administratively, the whole gr ...

, the Izu–Bonin–Mariana Arc, the Kuril Islands, and the Nanpō Islands neighbor the

. Japan is the largest

island country An island country, island state, or island nation is a country whose primary territory consists of one or more islands or parts of islands. Approximately 25% of all independent countries are island countries. Island countries are historically ...

East Asia East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...

and the fourth-largest island country in the world with . It has an

exclusive economic zone An exclusive economic zone (EEZ), as prescribed by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, is an area of the sea in which a sovereign state has exclusive rights regarding the exploration and use of marine natural resource, reso ...

of .

Terminology

The term " Mainland Japan" is used to distinguish the large islands of the Japanese archipelago from the remote, smaller islands; it refers to the main islands of

Hokkaido is the list of islands of Japan by area, second-largest island of Japan and comprises the largest and northernmost prefectures of Japan, prefecture, making up its own list of regions of Japan, region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō fr ...

Honshu , historically known as , is the largest of the four main islands of Japan. It lies between the Pacific Ocean (east) and the Sea of Japan (west). It is the list of islands by area, seventh-largest island in the world, and the list of islands by ...

Kyushu is the third-largest island of Japan's Japanese archipelago, four main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands (i.e. excluding Okinawa Island, Okinawa and the other Ryukyu Islands, Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Ryukyu Islands, Islands ...

, and

Shikoku is the smallest of the List of islands of Japan#Main islands, four main islands of Japan. It is long and between at its widest. It has a population of 3.8 million, the least populated of Japan's four main islands. It is south of Honshu ...

. From 1943 until the end of the

Pacific War The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War or the Pacific Theatre, was the Theater (warfare), theatre of World War II fought between the Empire of Japan and the Allies of World War II, Allies in East Asia, East and Southeast As ...

, Karafuto Prefecture (south Sakhalin) was designated part of the mainland. Geographically speaking the term "mainland" is somewhat inaccurate, as this refers to an expanse of territory that is attached to a continental landmass. The term "home islands" was used at the end of World War II to define the area where Japanese sovereignty and constitutional rule of its

emperor The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...

would be restricted. The term is also commonly used today to distinguish the archipelago from Japan's colonies and other territories.

Palaeogeography

Geography

The archipelago consists of 14,125 islands (here defined as land more than 100 m in circumference), of which 430 are inhabited. The five main islands, from north to south, are

, and Okinawa. Honshu is the largest and is referred to as the Japanese mainland."Japanese Archipelago"
, TheFreeDictionary.com, retrieved 24 June 2013. The topography is divided as: *Hokkaido, Honshu, and Shikoku and its surrounding islands; *Kyushu and the Ryukyu arc, which is composed of the Ryukyu Islands and other surrounding islands; *Eastern part of Hokkaido and the Kuril Islands; * Nanpō Islands and the

Izu Peninsula The is a mountainous peninsula with a deeply indented coastline to the west of Tokyo on the Pacific Ocean, Pacific coast of the island of Honshu, Japan, the largest of the four main islands of Japan. Formerly known as Izu Province, Izu peninsu ...

(part of Izu-Bonin-Mariana Arc).

Image gallery

References

{{Authority control Archipelagoes of the Pacific Ocean

Archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands. An archipelago may be in an ocean, a sea, or a smaller body of water. Example archipelagos include the Aegean Islands (the o ...

Terminology

Palaeogeography

Geography

Image gallery

See also

References