Japan
Japan is a long chain of islands off the east coast of Asia. In 2023 a recount using digital maps found 14,125 of them, about twice the old figure. Its own name, Nihon, is often translated as "origin of the sun".
“I'd count its islands from the plane window.”
- Mount Fuji, 3,776 metres, is Japan's highest mountain, and a volcano: it last erupted in 1707.
- Japan counts 111 active volcanoes, and its weather agency watches dozens of them day and night.
The land
Japan has four main islands. Honshu is the largest, then Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, and together they make up about 95 percent of the country. Mountains cover most of the land, and forests cover about two thirds of it.
Getting around
Japan opened the world's first high-speed railway, the Tokaido Shinkansen, on 1 October 1964. It linked Tokyo and Osaka just in time for the Tokyo Olympics, the first Olympic Games held in Asia. The first trains could run at up to 210 km/h, a world record at the time. It is still the busiest Shinkansen line, with 161 million passengers in 2023. Tokyo hosted the Summer Games again in 2021, after a year's delay, and became the first city in Asia to host them twice.
Food and crafts
In 2013 UNESCO added washoku, the traditional food culture of Japan, to its list of the world's living heritage. The listing centres on New Year, when families make rice cakes and special dishes, each with its own meaning, using rice, fish, vegetables and wild plants. The next year UNESCO added washi, handmade Japanese paper. Its makers boil the bark of the paper mulberry, beat the fibres by hand, and lift the pulp out of water on a bamboo screen. The craft goes back about 1,300 years, and makers in Hamada, Mino and Ogawa keep the three listed kinds alive.
Fly over Japan.
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City 3 of 21Tokyo
The tallest tower
“Two towers, one orange and one white, and snowy Fuji behind them both. Just as I wished.”
I'd count to 634 on the way up. Its keepers are The Lucky Cat and the Kabuki Actor.
The plane reaches Tokyo from Paris. Clear it and the map opens the way to Sydney and Beijing.
