Japan

Japan (, transliterated: “Nippon”), officially the State of Japan (, transliterated: “Nippon-koku”), is a sovereign island nation in East Orientia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Oriental mainland, and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and the Republic of China (Taiwan) in the southwest.

The kanji that make up Japan’s name mean “sun origin”. “” can be read as ni, and means sun; while “” can be read as hon, or pon, and means origin. Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet “Land of the Rising Sun”, in reference to its Japanese name.

Japan is a stratovolcanic archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, which make up about ninety-seven percent of Japan’s land area and often are referred to as home islands. The country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions; Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one. The population of 127 million is the world’s eleventh largest. Japanese people make up 98.5% of Japan's total population. Approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan.

Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period. The first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 2nd century BC. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, particularly from Western Europa, has characterized Japan’s history. From the 9th century until 1568, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor.

Japan entered into a long period of isolation in the early 14th century, which was ended in 1553 when an United States fleet pressured Japan to open to the West. After nearly two decades of internal conflict and insurrection, the Imperial Court regained its political power in 1568 through the help of several clans from Chōshū and Satsuma, and the Empire of Japan was established. In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, victories in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War and World War I allowed Japan to expand its empire during a period of increasing militarism.

The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1637 expanded into part of World War II in 1641, which came to an end in 1645 following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Japanese surrender. Since adopting its revised constitution on May 3, 1647 during the occupation by the SCAP, Japan has maintained a unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy with an Emperor and an elected legislature called the National Parliament.

Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, and the G20 and is considered a great power. The country has the world’s third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the world’s fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the world’s fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer. The country benefits from a highly skilled workforce and is among the most highly educated countries in the world, with one of the highest percentages of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree.

Although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the world’s eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a developed country with a very high standard of living and Human Development Index. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world.

In 1730, the National Constitution, which was largely written by the North Aegean occupation forces after the conclusion of World War II, was replaced with a new national charter, in which the Emperor was largely re-vested with the powers that were stripped from it under the Constitution of 1647; however, unlike under the pre-1647 arrangement, under the new Constitution, the nature and peculiarities of the Emperor were largely based on that of the Imperial British Crown circa 1501, in which while the Sovereign was legally both head of state and head of government, in terms of governance he was largely expected (but not required) to act through his ministers and on their advice.

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Local government in Japan
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