Military flag: the rising sun flag, with white background 16 red light, evolved from the sun flag. It used to be the flag of the Japanese army and navy, but now it is the flag of the Japanese navy. It is usually called a ship's flag when the foremast is raised, and it is called a battle flag when the back mast is raised in naval battle.
National emblem: round 16 yellow chrysanthemum petals. The chrysanthemum pattern is also the pattern on the royal coat of arms.
National anthem: "Dai Jun"
National flower: chrysanthemum (recognized by the Japanese royal family); Cherry blossoms (national flower: recognized by ordinary people); Meihua (Ceng Guohua).
National Bird: Green-tailed Rainbow Pheasant
National stone: crystal
physical geography
Capital: Tokyo
The largest city: Tokyo
Land area: 377,835 square kilometers (60th in the world).
Water area ratio: 0.8%
Time zone: UTC+9 (no daylight saving time)
National emblem people's life
Official language: Japanese
Official script: Japanese
Total population: 127767944 (global 10). According to Zhongxin. com. On September 2, 20091day, the statistics released by the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications showed that as of September 15, 2009, there were 28.98 million elderly people over 65 in Japan, an increase of 800,000 over last year. The proportion of the 65-year-old population in Japan's total population also increased by 0.6 percentage points, reaching a record 22.7%.
Population density: 337 people/km (30th in the world)
Civil voltage:110 v.
Sockets: a, b
Ethnic group: Yamato ethnic group
Main religion: Shinto
Calendar: Japanese calendar
Road traffic direction: keep to the left.
Currency: Japanese yen (円), pronounced ぇん (ENN).
Political culture
National Constitution: Constitution of Japan
State structure form: unitary system
State power: capitalist countries
Political system: constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy.
national leader
Head of State (Emperor): Akihito
Head of Government (Prime Minister): Yukio Hatoyama.
State leaders (separation of powers)
Executive (Prime Minister): Yukio Hatoyama.
Legislation (Parliament): Yokomichi Takahiro (House of Representatives), Jiangtian May (Senate)
Chief Justice (Supreme Court): Hiroyuki Takesaki
[Edit this paragraph] General description
The main ethnic group in Japan is the Yamato ethnic group, with about 24,000 Ainu people in Hokkaido and 6,543.8+0.2 million Ryukyu people in Okinawa. Japanese is widely used. A small number of people in Hokkaido can speak Ainu, and a small number of Ryukyu people in Okinawa can speak Ryukyu. The main religions are Shinto and Buddhism, and the religious population accounts for 49.6% and 44.8% respectively. The capital Tokyo is a modern metropolis with a population of1290,000. Japan's animation industry is extremely developed.
[Edit this paragraph] The origin of the country name
Japan was not called Japan at first. In ancient Japanese mythology, the Japanese called it "eight continents" and "eight island countries". According to the records in Hanshu and Houhanshu, Japan was called "Japan" or "Japan" in ancient China. In the 5th century A.D., after Japan's reunification, the title was Yamato. Because the ancient Japanese worshipped the sun god and regarded the sun as their totem. According to legend, at the beginning of the 7th century, Shoto Kutaishi of Japan wrote in a letter to Emperor Yang Di: "The prince comes from Japan to the sunset prince", which is the embryonic form of Japanese country name. It was not until the second half of the 7th century that Japan sent Tang Shi to change the country name to Japan, which means "the place where the sun rises", and then became the official country name of Japan. According to the Biography of the New Tang Dynasty in Japan, in the first year of Xianheng (670), Japan sent envoys to the Tang Dynasty. At this point, Japan has "learned a little bit about Xia Yan, hated its name and changed its name to Japan". The messenger said that he was famous for his recent appearance. "In addition, in Chinese," Fusang "and" Japan "are also nicknames for Japanese country names.
Japan literally means "the place where the sun rises". Therefore, Japan is sometimes called the country of Japan.
Before Japan came into contact with China, the Japanese called their places "やまと" and "ひのもと", meaning the origin of the sun.
During the Three Kingdoms period in China, the Japanese represented Japan in Japanese. Because the word "Japan" has the meaning of "short", after Chinese characters were introduced into Japan, the Japanese replaced it with the Japanese homonym "He". Write やまと in Japanese and ひのもと in Japanese with the Chinese character "Yamato". Later, Japanese was pronounced "Japan" by phonics, and changed to にほん(Nihon) and にっぽん(Nippon) commonly used in Japanese today.
The word "Japanese" did not appear in China until the end of the 7th century. The Twenty-four Histories of the Old Tang Dynasty records that the Japanese changed their country name to "Japan" because they didn't like the name. In the 8th century A.D., there was another saying in Justice in Historical Records that Wu Zetian ordered Japan to change its name to "Japan".
The official name of modern Japan is "Japan" (にほんこく). During the Meiji Restoration and the end of World War II, the official name of Japan was the Great Japanese Empire (だぃにっぽんて).
Although most Japanese in Japan also refer to their own country by "Japan", in recent years, "ジャパン" transliterated from the English word "Japan" and even "ジパング" transliterated from "Tsupan Gu".
Besides Japan and Yamato, Japan also had other Japanese titles in ancient times. Such as: Dabazhou (ぉぉやしま) (eight islands created by Izebo and Nozun in Japanese mythology), Hachijima (やしま) and Fusang (ふつ).
[Edit this paragraph] Geography and climate
Schematic diagram of four major islands in southeast, northwest and Japan and their poles 1, geographical location
Japan is located in the east of Eurasia and the west of the Pacific Ocean. It consists of thousands of islands, all of which are arc-shaped. The eastern and southern parts of Japan are the endless Pacific Ocean, bordering the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea in the west, the Sea of Okhotsk in the north, and facing North Korea, South Korea, China, Russia, the Philippines and other countries across the sea.
2. Region and regional division
Japan includes Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu and more than 6,800 other small islands.
Japan has a total area of 377,835 square kilometers, including 374,744 square kilometers of land, 309 1 square kilometers of water and 3 1 10,000 square kilometers of territorial waters.
Location of eight regions and prefectures in Japan. administrative division
Japan is divided into 47 first-level administrative regions: Yidu (Tokyo), Yitai (Hokkaido), Er Fu (Osaka, Kyoto) and 43 counties. Some cities have been designated as cities, nuclear cities and special cities by decree because of their large population and great influence in the local area. The administrative divisions under prefectures and counties are cities, towns and villages, as well as administrative units such as counties, sub-bureaus, districts and special zones.
In recent years, Japan has implemented the policy of merging cities, towns and villages, and the number of towns and villages has been greatly reduced. Now, in order to ease the centralization in Tokyo and promote the decentralization, we are reviewing the necessity of abolishing prefectures and implementing the Daozhou system (on the Daozhou system in Japan). 1968, the Japanese autonomous province introduced the numbering system of local public organizations. At present, all prefectures, cities, towns and villages in Japan have their own numbers. The number of prefectures and counties is consistent with ISO 3 166-2:JP.
The symbol of Japan's prefectures. Major city
The capital of Japan is Tokyo, which is also one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world. Tokyo Special Economic Zone has a population of about 8.6 million, with Tokyo as the center, including the capitals of Kanagawa Prefecture, saitama Prefecture and Chiba Prefecture, with a population of about 33 million. Japan's imperial residence, National Assembly Hall, Cabinet, Supreme Court, provincial offices, embassies of various countries in Japan, headquarters of large enterprises, Japanese banks, securities companies, department stores, newspapers and television stations are all concentrated in Tokyo. At present, many vice capitals have been formed in and around Tokyo.
If the 23rd district of Tokyo is regarded as a city, there are 12 cities with a population of over one million in Japan. Among them, except Kawasaki City, they are all prefectures, as shown in the following table: Population density of prefectures in the city.
Per square kilometer
1 Tokyo Tokyo Kanto 8,483,05013642.5
2 3,579, Kanto District, Kanagawa Prefecture, Yokohama City, 1338438+038+0.
Osaka City, Feng Jingen Prefecture, 2,628,77611843.5.
4 2,265,438+05,0365,438+0,6785.2 in the middle of Aichi Prefecture, Nagoya City
Sapporo, Hokkaido 5 Hokkaido 1, 880,8751677.7
6 Feng Jingen, Hyogo Prefecture, Kobe City 1, 525,389 2759.8
7 Feng Jingen County, Kyoto Prefecture 1, 474,7641781.3
8 Kyushu and Okinawa, Fukuoka Prefecture and Fukuoka City+0,400,621,4 1 12.2
9 Kawasaki City, Kanto District, Kanagawa Prefecture 1, 327,009 9193.0
10 saitama Kanto Saitama 1,176,269 5408.4
1 1 China, Hiroshima +0,154,5951275.8.
Northeast Miyagi Prefecture, Sendai City 1, 024,9671300.6
5. Topography and landform
There are many mountains in Japan, which are distributed in the center of Japan in a ridge shape, dividing Japan's territory into one side of the Pacific Ocean and one side of the Sea of Japan. Mountains and hills account for 765,438+0% of the total area. In addition, Mount Fuji is the highest peak in Japan, with an altitude of 3,776 meters.
The plains in Japan are mainly distributed in the downstream coastal areas of rivers, mostly alluvial plains, with a small scale. The larger plains include Kanto Plain, Shikai Plain, Yuehou Plain, Houwei Plain and Shi Sheng Plain.
Japan is located in the Pacific volcanic earthquake zone, with frequent volcanic activities, which has brought great troubles to the lives of local people. There are more than 200 volcanoes in China, of which more than 50 are active volcanoes, which is a famous earthquake area in the world, so there is the saying that there is a country of volcanic earthquakes. In the volcanic distribution area, with beautiful scenery and rich hot spring resources, it has become a famous tourist attraction.
6. Rivers, plains and lakes
Japan has short rivers and abundant water resources, and the longest Shinano River is about 367 kilometers long. The largest lake is Lake Biwa, with an area of 672.8 square kilometers.
Most rivers in Japan originate in the central mountainous areas and flow eastward and westward into the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Japan. Because Japan is long and narrow from east to west, the mountains are steep and the rivers are short and urgent. In rainy season and typhoon season, the amount of water increases, which is easy to form floods. To this end, Japan has built a large number of flood control dams and reservoirs. River water is widely used for domestic water, agricultural and industrial water and hydropower generation.
7. Coastline and Ocean
Japan's coastline is 33,889 kilometers long. As Japan is an island country, its coastline is very complicated. There are many cliffs in the Sea of Japan in the west, few ports, and many estuaries in the Pacific Ocean in the east, forming many natural ports.
In the East Pacific Ocean, it is surrounded by the Japanese warm current (Kuroshio) from south to north, and the Kuroshio cold current (pro-tide) forms in the northeast. In the West Sea of Japan, there are warm currents and Riemann cold currents flowing to Malaysia. At the intersection of cold current and warm current, there are abundant fish resources and become natural fishing grounds. Because it is surrounded by the sea, it has a temperate maritime monsoon climate, which is mild and humid all year round, with no severe cold in winter and no heat in summer. There are many typhoons in summer and autumn, and it rains in June. 1 Monthly average temperature is -6℃ in the north and16℃ in the south; In July, it was 17℃ in the north and 28℃ in the south. The annual precipitation is 700-3500mm, and the maximum is over 4000mm. In recent years, El Nino, which has caused the sea water to warm, has also had an impact on Japan, mainly because the duration of plum rains is prolonged, and it is easy to form Leng Xia and warm winter.
8. Geomorphology and Geology
From the point of view of plate tectonics, Japan is located at the extinction boundary of Asia-Europe plate and Pacific plate, and it is a part of the combination of island arc, coastal mountains and trenches in the western Pacific. 68% of this country is mountainous. The highest mountain in Japan is the famous Mount Fuji, with an altitude of 3776 meters. Because there are few plains, crops are planted on many mountains in Japan, and the largest plain is Kanto Plain. Japan is located in the volcanic seismic belt around the Pacific Ocean. One tenth of the world's volcanoes are located in Japan, and volcanic activities often occur all over the country. There will be several major earthquakes every century; The Hanshin earthquake and the Sino-Vietnamese earthquake in Niigata Prefecture in recent years are both strong earthquakes with magnitude above 6 on the Richter scale, which have attracted the attention of all countries in the world. There are many hot springs in Japan, which have developed into tourist attractions.
Because Japan's islands extend to the northeast for a long time, and the north and south span about 20 degrees latitude, there are many climate types. Most of the climate types are temperate monsoon climate, while Kyushu Island, Shikoku and Ryukyu Islands in the south are subtropical monsoon climate. The northern islands are warm in summer, long and cold in winter, and often have a lot of snowfall. In the central and western regions, it is dry in winter, seldom snows, and humid in summer.
9. Japanese climate
Japan spans 25 degrees latitude, and the temperature difference between north and south is very significant. The plateaus of Hokkaido and Honshu belong to the sub-frigid zone, the native land belongs to the temperate zone, and the southern islands such as Okinawa belong to the subtropical zone. In addition, Japan's geographical position makes it influenced by the intersection of monsoon and ocean current, so it has four distinct seasons and abundant precipitation.
Japan can be divided into six climatic zones, namely:
The climate of Hokkaido
Hokkaido is not affected by plum rains, and the rainfall is less than that in other parts of Japan. Summer is short and cool; Winter is long and cold.
Japan's coastal climate
It covers the western coastal area of Honshu Island. Winter is controlled by Siberian high, and the northwest wind blows. At the same time, because the warm current in winter brings a lot of water vapor to the horse current passing through the Sea of Japan, it often snows heavily. There is less precipitation in summer, and sometimes there is abnormal high temperature due to foehn.
Central plateau climate
Typical inland climate. It is cold in winter and cool in summer. There is a great temperature difference between winter and summer and day and night. Low rainfall
Pacific coastal climate
Including the east coast of Honshu, Shikoku and most parts of Kyushu. Influenced by the southeast monsoon in summer, there are many strong typhoons in Meiyu period. In winter, there is less snowfall.
Seto inland sea climate
Including parts of Yang Shan, Shikoku, Feng Jingen and Kyushu. The weather here is often sunny, with little rainfall and suffering from drought from time to time.
Climate of Nanxi Islands
The scope is Ryukyu Islands. It belongs to subtropical climate, with hot summer and warm winter. Rainstorm. Typhoons often strike in summer.
The precipitation in Japan is the highest in the world. The main reasons include winter snowfall in Japan's coastal areas; Continuous plum rains in June-July (May-June in Okinawa and Amami); And typhoons that landed in or near Japan from summer to autumn. The highest recorded temperature in Japan is 40.9 degrees, which was measured on August 16, 2007 in Kumagaya City, saitama and Tojima City, Gifu Prefecture. The lowest recorded temperature is -4 1 degree, which was 10+degree measured in Asahikawa, Hokkaido on October 25th.
[Edit this paragraph] Japanese history
About 1 century, there were more than 100 small countries in Japan (some of them established diplomatic relations with the Eastern Han Dynasty). Later, these small countries gradually unified.
In the 4th century, Kansai established a relatively large country. It is said that the ancestors of the royal family finally unified them today. At that time, Japan included western Honshu, northern Kyushu and Shikoku.
Therefore, it will take a long time for this country to be unified. Therefore, it is difficult to make an accurate judgment on the exact date of the birth of Japan. According to Records of Historical Records and Records of Japan, the first emperor Emperor Jimmu was founded in 660 BC and acceded to the throne. The date of his accession to the throne is equivalent to 1 1 in the current Gregorian calendar, so this day is designated as the "founding day". Emperor Jimmu is the "Imperial Commandment" that Shoto Kutaishi once arranged with the Daoism of "Heart has Years". Nine years of pushing the ancient times happened to be a year of heart, and it was also a year of Shoto Kutaishi's reform in Turtledove Palace. The heart appears once every 60 years, also known as a round. According to Daohuangju Shuangqiao religion, each round of Xinyou Year is a year of change. 2 1 XinYou Year is a year of drastic changes.
Therefore, Shoto Kutaishi took nine years (60 1 year) as the starting point, and then pushed 2 1 round upward as the founding year of Japan. It is stipulated that the lunar calendar 1 month 1 day of that year is the day when the Shenmu emperor ascended the pole (Gregorian calendar 2 1 February). According to this deduction algorithm, AD 1990 is 2649. As a result, the imperial system advanced about 1000 years. In this gap of one thousand years, 10 fictional emperors were artificially inserted. Shoto Kutaishi compiled Japanese history according to this logic. Later generations have continued it to this day.
Shogunate era
/kloc-in the 0/2nd century, Japan formed two major power groups, dominating Kansai and Genji dominating Kanto. 1 167, Ping Qingsheng, the leader of Ping Group, became a minister, and the samurai began to hold real power. Genji and Shi Ping broke out two wars in 1 180 and 1 185. Since then, there have been constant struggles among samurai groups, and there have also been times when Muromachi shogunate and Edo shogunate (also known as Tokugawa shogunate) ruled. During this period, Japan broke out many large-scale peasant uprisings and fought many foreign wars. Yes, during this period, political chaos occurred frequently in Japan.
Meiji reform
Meiji Restoration was a political revolution in Japan in the19th century. It overthrew the rule of Tokugawa shogunate, carried out great political, economic and social reforms, and promoted Japan's modernization and westernization. The main leaders of Meiji Restoration were some young warriors who tried to build a country that could keep pace with the West under the slogan of "Rich Qiang Bing". 187 1 year, abolish feudal counties and eliminate all feudal regimes. In the same year, a new standing army was established. 1873 implemented the national compulsory military service system and reformed the agricultural tax. In addition, the currency was unified. The Meiji government implemented the cabinet system in 1885, and began to formulate the constitution the following year. 1889 formally promulgated the constitution, 1890 convened the first parliament. At the same time of political reform, economic and social reforms are also going on. The main goal of Meiji government is to realize industrialization. The military industry and transportation industry have been greatly developed. The first railway was built in 1872 and the new bank was established in 1882. Until the beginning of the 20th century, the goal of Meiji Restoration was basically completed, and Japan became an Asian power.
A rapidly rising world power
In World War II, Japan was defeated and surrendered, and fascist militarism was completely defeated. In the 1960s, the Japanese government enacted the Basic Law on Agriculture, which enabled a large number of farmers to flood into cities through laws to supplement the demand for labor for industrial development, thus enabling Japan's economy to achieve long-term sustained and high-speed growth. From 65438 to 0968, Japan's gross national product increased greatly, becoming the second largest economic power in the capitalist world after the United States.
[Edit this paragraph] Japanese politics
Japan is a constitutional monarchy country. The Constitution stipulates that "sovereignty lies with the people" and the Emperor is "a symbol of unity between Japan and the people". The emperor of Japan, like most constitutional monarchy countries in the world, has only the name of the head of state and no real political power, but he is highly respected by the people.
Japan's political system is divided into three powers: legislative power belongs to bicameral parliament; Judicial power belongs to the court, that is, the court; Executive power belongs to the Cabinet, local public organizations and central ministries and agencies.
According to the Constitution, the highest organ of state power is the National Assembly, with 480 seats in the House of Representatives and 242 seats in the Senate. Voters are nationals over the age of 20.
Starting from 1955, the Liberal Democratic Party, formerly known as the conservative contract, was in power for a long time, but it was temporarily replaced by its rivals from 1993 to 1996, and it came to power from 1996. Other opposition parties include the Democratic Party of Japan, the Social Democratic Party of Japan and the Japanese Production Party. At present, the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito Coalition government are in power.
form
Japan's current Constitution came into effect on May 3, 1947. According to the constitution, the state implements a parliamentary cabinet system based on the separation of legislative, judicial and administrative powers; The emperor is a symbol of Japan and Japanese nationals as a whole and has no right to participate in state affairs; "Forever renounce the use of state power to wage war, the threat or use of force as a means to resolve international disputes. In order to achieve this goal, Japan does not maintain war forces such as land, sea and air, and does not recognize the right of the country to engage in war "(Article 9). According to the Constitution, the highest organ of state power is the National Assembly. Japan has a bicameral system, with 480 seats in the House of Representatives and 242 seats in the Senate. Voters are nationals over the age of 20 [32]. The term of office of members of the House of Representatives is four years, but in fact, they are often dissolved in the middle and rarely serve a full four-year term. The term of office of members of the Senate is six years, and half of them are re-elected every three years. From 1955, the Liberal Democratic Party, formerly known as the Conservative Contract, was in power for a long time, and it became the opposition party from 1993 to 1996, and it was in power again from 1996. At present, the main opposition parties in Japan are Democratic Party, Producer Party and Social Democratic Party. At present, Japan is governed by the Democratic Party.
Current prime minister
On September 6th, 2009, the172nd Special Congress of Japan was held. Yukio Hatoyama (62), a representative of the Democratic Party, will be elected as the 93rd and 60th Japanese Prime Minister at the plenary session of the House of Representatives that afternoon.
e-government
As early as 1993 and 10, Japan's provisional administrative reform promotion deliberation meeting regarded government informatization as one of the important contents of administrative reform and requested to formulate a government informatization promotion plan. 1In August, 1994, the Japanese government established the Department for Revitalizing the High Intelligent Communication Society, and the Prime Minister of the Cabinet personally served as the head of the Department. In the same year, in 65438+February, the Japanese cabinet meeting passed the resolution of "Promoting the Basic Plan of Government Informatization", which lasted for five years from 1995. 1997, the Japanese government renamed the original "White Paper on Computer" as "White Paper on Informatization", which combined government informatization with industrial informatization and family informatization, and * * * together constituted the main body of Japanese economic and social informatization. The Japanese government launched the "E-government Project" in March 2000, with the goal of realizing more than 3,000 government businesses through the Internet by 2003. According to the plan of this project, the Japanese government will make all the main business of government departments through the Internet before 2005, which indicates that Japan will fully enter the era of electronic and paperless office.
In order to stimulate Japan's long-term depressed economy, the Japanese government established the policy of "building the country through it" and put forward the grand "e-Japan" plan in March 2000 as an important driving force to revitalize Japan. The plan lists three basic measures: the construction of information society infrastructure with both software and hardware; National campaign to popularize information technology through the combination of government and people; AmbITious it strategy and it diplomacy.