Japan: Geopolitics and Geographie

Tokyo, Japan's capital, is located on Honshu, which is Japan's biggest and most populated Island. The other islands are Hokkaido (in the north) and Shikoku and Kyushu in the south. Japan is roughly 380'000 sqkm big. It ranges 2'500 Km from north to south and has got about 6800 islands.

In Japan three tectonic plates meet. The eurasean plate in the west and the north. The philipine plate in the south and the pacific plate in the east. So Japan is located straight on the famous pacific ring of fire (where 10 % of the world's active vulcanos are located). Furthermore, Japan is also located on the trajectory of the Taifuns which hit Japan almost every autum. Japan is one of the country most severely ravaged by natural catastrophes.

Japan is mainly populated around the coast, which represents only 25% of the total landmass. Japan is densely populated (330 people per sqkm), but distributed unequally (Hokkaido less than 100 per sqkm and over 1000 per sqkm around Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya). Almost half of Japan's population (127 Million) do live in those megacities.

Also in the south- east one finds the two main business centres of Japan. The Kanto region (=Tokyo, Kawasaki and Yokohama) and the Kansai region (=Osaka, Kyoto and Nara).

Apart from coal, Japan doesn't posess any natural resources. But Japan is extremely rich on water (salt and sweet water).

And Japan has got a huge exclusive economic zone (=EEZ) in the pacific. The EEZ is of enormous geostratigical and economic importance, as the EEZ is 12 times as big as its state territory! Most of the EEZ is composed of empty or barely inhabited small islands.

Basically, Japan's external frontier is more determined by the pacific than by its landmass.

But Japan's EEZ is disputed by neighbouring countries. Especially the Senkaku Island (in the south-west) are frequently mentioned in the press lately, as they are also claimed by China and Taiwan.
But also in the north, the Kurriles, which are under Russian control,  are disputed over. Japan claims four of those islands (called northern territory in Japan) as japanese, and they are the main reason why there is no peace treaty between Russia and Japan.

Last but not least, there are disputes between Japan and Korea over the island (rocks) of Takashima infront of the corean peninsula and controlled by South- Cora. South- Corea also demands, that the sea of japan is renamed to east sea.

 
Japan's ship building industry is very important and Japan has got (after Greece) the biggest merchant fleet in the world.

Because Japan is so resource poor, free excess to the sea is extremely important to get resources into the country and final products (exports) out of the country. Energy is mainly imported from the middle east via the east china sea. This is, beside supposed oil and gas fields, the main reason Japan is very concerned by the chinese claims over the Senkaku Islands.

Japan also invested heavily worlwide and in recent history most notably in the east and south- east asian region. Industries to highlight are the automobilesector, consumer electronics, but also telecomunication. Basically, security issues surrounding Japan's terrirtory is greatly linked to economic issues.