For an overview of Japanese topics, see the Index of Japan-related articles or the Japan Portal. See also: Outline of Japan This article contains Japanesetext. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbolsinstead of kanji and kana. Japan i/dʒəˈpæn/ (Japanese: 日本 Nihon or Nippon; formally 日本国 Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku, literally "[the] State of Japan") is an island nation inEast Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters that make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin", which is why Japan is sometimes referred to as the "Land of the Rising Sun". Japan is an archipelago of 6,852 islands. The four largest islands are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku, which together comprise about ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area. Japan has the world's tenth-largest population, with over 127 million people. Honshū's Greater Tokyo Area, which includes the de facto capital city of Tokyo and several surrounding prefectures, is the largest metropolitan area in the world, with over 30 million residents. Archaeological research indicates that people lived in Japan as early as the Upper Paleolithic period. The first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other nations followed by long periods of isolation has characterized Japan's history. From the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military dictatorships (shogunates) in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a long period of isolation in the early 17th century, which was only ended in 1853 when a United States fleet pressured Japan to open to the West. Nearly two decades of internal conflict and insurrection followed before the Meiji Emperor was restored as head of state in 1868 and the Empire of Japan was proclaimed, with the Emperor as a divine symbol of the nation. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, victory 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 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since adopting its revised constitution in 1947, Japan has maintained a unitary constitutional monarchy with an emperor and an elected legislature called the Diet. A major economic power,[2] Japan has the world's third-largest economy by nominal GDP and by purchasing power parity. It is also the world's fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer. Although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the sixth largest military budget,[10] used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. After Singapore, Japan has the lowest homicide rate (including attempted homicide) in the world.[11]According to Japan's health ministry, Japanese women have the second highest life expectancy of any country in the world.[12] According to the United Nations, Japan also has the third lowest infant mortality rate.[13][14]
The English word Japan derives from the Chinese pronunciation of the Japanese name, 日本, pronounced Nippon 
listen (help·info) or Nihon listen (help·info) in Japanese. The pronunciation Nippon is more formal, and is used for most official purposes, including international sporting events.
listen (help·info) or Nihon listen (help·info) in Japanese. The pronunciation Nippon is more formal, and is used for most official purposes, including international sporting events.
From the Meiji Restoration until the end of World War II, the full title of Japan was Dai Nippon Teikoku (大日本帝國), meaning "the Empire of Great Japan". Today the name Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku (日本国) is used as a formal modern-day equivalent; countries like Japan whose long form does not contain a descriptive designation are generally given a name appended by the character koku (国), meaning "country", "nation" or "state".
Japanese people refer to themselves as Nihonjin (日本人) and to their language as Nihongo (日本語). Both Nippon and Nihon mean "sun-origin" and are often translated as Land of the Rising Sun. This nomenclature comes from Japanese missions to Imperial China and refers to Japan's eastward position relative to China. Before Nihon came into official use, Japan was known as Wa (倭) or Wakoku (倭国).[15]
The English word for Japan came to the West via early trade routes. The early Mandarin or possibly Wu Chinese (吳語) pronunciation of Japan was recorded byMarco Polo as Cipangu. In modern Shanghainese, a Wu dialect, the pronunciation of characters 日本 'Japan' is Zeppen [zəʔpən]. The old Malay word for Japan,Jepang, was borrowed from a southern coastal Chinese dialect, probably Fukienese or Ningpo,[16] and this Malay word was encountered by Portuguese traders inMalacca in the 16th century. Portuguese traders were the first to bring the word to Europe.[17] It was first recorded in English in a 1565 letter, spelled Giapan.[18]
Prehistory and ancient history
A Paleolithic culture around 30,000 BC constitutes the first known habitation of the Japanese archipelago. This was followed from around 14,000 BC (the start of theJōmon period) by a Mesolithic to Neolithic semi-sedentary hunter-gatherer culture, who include ancestors of both the contemporary Ainu people and Yamato people,[19][20] characterized by pit dwelling and rudimentary agriculture.[21] Decorated clay vessels from this period are some of the oldest surviving examples of pottery in the world. Around 300 BC, the Yayoi people began to enter the Japanese islands, intermingling with the Jōmon.[22] The Yayoi period, starting around 500 BC, saw the introduction of practices like wet-rice farming,[23] a new style of pottery,[24] and metallurgy, introduced from China and Korea.[25]
Japan first appears in written history in the Chinese Book of Han.[26] According to the Records of the Three Kingdoms, the most powerful kingdom on the archipelago during the 3rd century was called Yamataikoku. Buddhism was first introduced to Japan from Baekje of Korea, but the subsequent development ofJapanese Buddhism was primarily influenced by China.[27] Despite early resistance, Buddhism was promoted by the ruling class and gained widespread acceptance beginning in the Asuka period (592–710).[28]
The Nara period (710–784) of the 8th century marked the emergence of a strong Japanese state, centered on an imperial court in Heijō-kyō (modern Nara). The Nara period is characterized by the appearance of a nascent literature as well as the development of Buddhist-inspired art and architecture.[29] The smallpox epidemic of 735–737 is believed to have killed as much as one-third of Japan's population.[30] In 784, Emperor Kammu moved the capital from Nara to Nagaoka-kyō before relocating it to Heian-kyō(modern Kyoto) in 794.
This marked the beginning of the Heian period (794–1185), during which a distinctly indigenous Japanese culture emerged, noted for its art, poetry and prose. Lady Murasaki's The Tale of Genji and the lyrics of Japan's national anthemKimigayo were written during this time.[31]
Buddhism began to spread during the Heian era chiefly through two major sects, Tendai by Saichō, and Shingon by Kūkai.Pure Land Buddhism (Jōdo-shū, Jōdo Shinshū) greatly becomes popular in the latter half of the 11th century.
Feudal era
Japan's feudal era was characterized by the emergence and dominance of a ruling class of warriors, the samurai. In 1185, following the defeat of the Taira clan, sung in the epic Tale of Heike, samurai Minamoto no Yoritomo was appointed shogun and established a base of power inKamakura. After his death, the Hōjō clan came to power as regents for the shoguns. The Zen school of Buddhism was introduced from China in the Kamakura period(1185–1333) and became popular among the samurai class.[32] The Kamakura shogunate repelled Mongol invasions in 1274 and 1281, but was eventuallyoverthrown by Emperor Go-Daigo. Go-Daigo was himself defeated by Ashikaga Takauji in 1336.
During the 16th century, traders and Jesuit missionaries from Portugal reached Japan for the first time, initiating direct commercial and cultural exchange between Japan and the West. Oda Nobunaga conquered many other daimyo using European technology and firearms; after he was assassinated in 1582, his successorToyotomi Hideyoshi unified the nation in 1590. Hideyoshi invaded Korea twice, but following defeats by Korean and Ming Chinese forces and Hideyoshi's death, Japanese troops were withdrawn in 1598.[34] This age is called Azuchi-Momoyama Period (1573–1603).
Tokugawa Ieyasu served as regent for Hideyoshi's son and used his position to gain political and military support. When open war broke out, he defeated rival clans in the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600. Ieyasu was appointed shogun in 1603 and established the Tokugawa shogunate at Edo (modern Tokyo).[35] The Tokugawa shogunate enacted measures including buke shohatto, as a code of conduct to control the autonomous daimyo;[36] and in 1639, the isolationist sakoku ("closed country") policy that spanned the two and a half centuries of tenuous political unity known as the Edo period (1603–1868).[37] The study of Western sciences, known as rangaku, continued through contact with the Dutch enclave at Dejima in Nagasaki. The Edo period also gave rise to kokugaku ("national studies"), the study of Japan by the Japanese.[38]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan
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