Regions and Prefectures of Japan no labels

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 ...

is often divided into

region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and ...

s, each containing one or more of the country's 47 prefectures at large. Sometimes, they are referred to as "blocs" (ブロック, ''burokku''), or "regional blocs" (地域ブロック, ''chiiki burokku'') as opposed to more granular regional divisions. They are not official administrative units, though they have been used by government officials for statistical and other purposes since 1905. They are widely used in, for example, maps, geography textbooks, and weather reports, and many businesses and institutions use their home regions in their names as well, for example Kyushu National Museum,

Kinki Nippon Railway , referred to as and officially Kinki-Nippon Railway, is a Japanese passenger railway company, managing infrastructure and operating passenger train service. Its railway system is the largest in Japan, excluding Japan Railways Group. The railw ...

, Chūgoku Bank, and Tōhoku University. One common division, preferred by the

English Wikipedia The English Wikipedia is the primary English-language edition of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. It was created by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger on 15 January 2001, as Wikipedia's first edition. English Wikipedia is hosted alongside o ...

, groups the prefectures into eight regions. In that division, of the four main islands of Japan,

Hokkaidō is the second-largest island of Japan and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by railway via the Seikan Tunnel. The ...

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 ...

, and

Kyūshū is the third-largest island of Japan's four main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands (i.e. excluding Okinawa and the other Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Islands). In the past, it has been known as , and . The historical regio ...

make up one region each, the latter also containing the

Satsunan Islands The is a geopolitical name for a group of islands that forms the northern part of the Ryukyu Islands. The whole island group belongs to Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. Major islands * Satsunan Islands ** Ōsumi Islands with: *** Tanegashima, Yak ...

, while the largest island

Honshū , 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 seventh-largest island in the world, and the second-most populous after the Indonesian ...

is divided into five regions.

Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan. It consists of three main island groups—the Okinawa Islands, the Sakishima Islands, and the Daitō Islands—spread across a maritime zone approximately 1,000 kilometers east to west an ...

is usually included in Kyūshū, but is sometimes treated as its own ninth region. Japan has eight High Courts, but their jurisdictions do not correspond to the eight Wikipedia regions (see #Other regional divisions and

Judicial system of Japan In the judicial system of Japan, the Constitution of Japan guarantees that "all judges shall be independent in the exercise of their conscience and shall be bound only by this constitution and the Laws" (Article 76). They cannot be removed from ...

for details).

Table

Regions and islands

This is a list of Japan's major islands, traditional regions, and subregions, going from northeast to southwest.Regions of Japan on web-japan.org
/ref> The eight traditional regions are marked in bold. *

(the island and its archipelago) *

Tōhoku region The , Northeast region, , or consists of the northeastern portion of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. This traditional region consists of six prefectures (): Akita, Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi, and Yamagata. Tōhoku retains ...

(northern part) **

Kantō region The is a geography, geographical region of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. In a common definition, the region includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures of Japan, prefectures: Chiba Prefecture, Chiba, Gunma Prefe ...

(eastern part) ***

Nanpō Islands The is a collective term for the groups of islands that are located to the south of the Japanese archipelago. They extend from the Izu Peninsula west of Tokyo Bay southward for about , to within of the Mariana Islands. The Nanpō Islands are all ...

(part of

Tokyo Metropolis Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

) **

Chūbu region The , Central region, or is a region in the middle of Honshū, Japan's main island. In a wide, classical definition, it encompasses nine prefectures (''ken''): Aichi, Fukui, Gifu, Ishikawa, Nagano, Niigata, Shizuoka, Toyama, and Ya ...

(central part) ***

Hokuriku region The is located in the northwestern part of Honshu, the main island of Japan. It lies along the Sea of Japan and is part of the larger Chūbu region. It is almost equivalent to the former Koshi Province (Japan), Koshi Province and Hokurikudō are ...

(northwestern Chūbu) ***

Kōshin'etsu region is a subregion of the Chūbu region in Japan consisting of Yamanashi, Nagano, and Niigata prefectures. The name Kōshin'etsu is a composite formed from the names of old provinces which are adjacent to each other — Kai (now Yamanashi) ...

(northeastern Chūbu) ***

Tōkai region The is a subregion of the Chūbu region and Kansai region in Japan that runs along the Pacific Ocean. The name comes from the Tōkaidō, one of the Edo Five Routes. Because Tōkai is a sub-region and is not officially classified, there is ...

(southern Chūbu) ** Kansai (or Kinki) region (south-central part) **

Chūgoku region The , also known as the region, is the westernmost region of Honshū, the largest island of Japan. It consists of the prefectures of Hiroshima, Okayama, Shimane, Tottori and Yamaguchi. As of the 2020 census, it has a population of 7,328,339 ...

(western part) ***

San'in region The is an area in the southwest of Honshū, the main island of Japan. It consists of the northern part of the Chūgoku region, facing the Sea of Japan. Specifically, it is the two prefectures of Shimane Prefecture, Shimane and Tottori Prefecture ...

(northern Chūgoku) *** San'yō region (southern Chūgoku) *

** Northern Kyūshū ** Southern Kyūshū **

Ryukyu Islands The , also known as the or the , are a chain of Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Geography of Taiwan, Taiwan: the Ryukyu Islands are divided into the Satsunan Islands (Ōsumi Islands, Ōsumi, Tokara Islands, Tokara and A ...

***

Okinawa most commonly refers to: * Okinawa Prefecture, Japan's southernmost prefecture * Okinawa Island, the largest island of Okinawa Prefecture * Okinawa Islands, an island group including Okinawa itself * Okinawa (city), the second largest city in th ...

Other regional divisions

In many contexts in Japan (government, media markets, sports, regional business or trade union confederations), regions are used that deviate from the above-mentioned common geographical 8-region division that is sometimes referred to as "the" regions of Japan in the

and some other English-language publications. Examples of regional divisions of Japan as used by various institutions are: Japanese House of Representatives Proportional Representation Blocks

Japanese House of Representatives Proportional Representation Blocks

Regions as administrative units

In the later stages of World War II, in preparation for an Allied invation of the home islands, regions served as administrative units between the Home Ministry and the governments of prefectures from 1943. Initially, nine "regional administrative joint conferences" (地方行政協議会, ''chihō gyōsei kyō-kaigi'') were set up, each comprising several prefectural governments under the leadership of one prefectural government. In 1945, they were consolidated into eight centralized "regional governorates-general" (地方総監府, ''chihō sōkan-fu'') with authority of command over the subordinate prefectural governments. The regions corresponded territorially to the military districts (軍管区, ''gunkan-ku'') as used by the Imperial Army in 1945. They were namely: After capitulation, the governorates-general were immediately dissolved by GHQ/SCAP and the (in the Empire: very limited) local autonomy of prefectural governments and their elected assemblies restored to be eventually substantially expanded by the Constitution and the Local Autonomy Law in 1947.

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