Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea in the south. The Japanese archipelago consists of four major islands and thousands of smaller islands, covering 377,975 square kilometers (145,937 sq mi). Its captial and largest city is Tokyo; the Greater Tokyo Area is the largest metropolitan area in the world, with more than 37 million inhabitants as of 2024. Divided into 47 administrative prefectures and eight traditional regions, about three-quarters of the country's terrain is mountainous and heavily forested, concentrating its agriculture and highly urbanized population along its eastern coastal plains.