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A country's geography influences the development of its society and culture in many ways. Its location in relation to other nations has an effect on intercultural influences; its size affects demography, the development of social structures, and its position in the international community. Its topography dictates to a large extent where and how its people earn their livings, and its climate influences its agriculture and styles of living. The following maps will demonstrate these and other aspects of the influence of geography on national development.
Composition, Position, and Relative Size
Japan is a shimaguni (island country): The Japanese archipelago (island chain) consists of four main islands--Honshû, Shikoku, Kyûshû and Hokkaidô--and thousands of smaller surrounding ones (see map 1). It lies off the Pacific coast of the Asian mainland; at the closest point, the main Japanese islands are 120 miles away from the mainland. (See map 2). Compare this with another shimaguni, Great Britain, which is, at the narrowest point of the English Channel, only 21 miles from Europe.
The total land space of the Japanese islands is about 142,000 square miles. As you can see from map 2 and map 3, it is a very small country when compared with the vast Asian mainland, or with the United States, where it is smaller than the single, although large, state of California. It seems even smaller when you realize how little of its land is useful for agriculture or housing, as we will discuss below. China, the United States, and a few other giants of the world are the unusual ones, however. Japan does not seem so small when compared with some of the nations of Western Europe. It is, for example, larger than Italy
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