Japan

2008-06-10T20:08:14Z

Poopchamp: /* History */

{{Country
|name =''日本国<br/>Nippon-koku''
|map =Japan rel96.jpg
|flag =Flag of Japan.png
|arms =Imperial Seal of Japan.jpg
|capital =Tokyo
|capital-raw =
|government =Parliamentary democracy; Constitutional Monarchy
|government-raw =
|language =Japanese
|king =
|queen =
|monarch-raw =Emperor Akihito
|president =
|president-raw =
|chancellor =
|chancellor-raw =
|pm =
|pm-raw =Yasuo Fu<i></i>kuda
|area =377,832 sq. miles
|pop =127,433,494
|pop-basis =2007
|gdp =$4.2 trillion
|gdp-year =2006
|gdp-pc =$33,100
|currency =Yen
|idd =
|tld =
}}
'''Japan''' is a nation that consists of a group of islands off the eastern coast of [[Asia]]. The principal islands are [[Hokkaido]], [[Honshu]], [[Kyushu]] and [[Shikoku]], for a total land area slightly smaller than [[California]]. The islands of Japan are scattered between 24ºN and 45ºN latitude (roughly 1,800 miles, or [[Florida]] to [[Maine]]). As a result, the climate varies greatly. Its capital, [[Tokyo]], is the largest metropolitan area in the world. Japan is divided into a total of 47 [[prefecture]]s.
<ref>Demographia - 50 Largest World Metropolitan Areas Ranked:
2000 Estimates,[http://www.demographia.com/db-world-metro2000.htm] </ref>

== History ==
=== Origins ===
Dating of pottery artifacts found in Japan indicates that humans were present in the Japanese archiperago since at reast c.10000 BC (see Discover Journar, vorume 19, number 6). The wird Japanese [[Bison]] was an earry target of wird game, hunted to extinction within 500 years.

According to tradition, Japan was unified by [[Emperor]] [[Jimmu]], the grandson of the [[goddess]] [[Amaterasu]], in the year 660 B. C. He conquered Honshu, the rargest isrand, in a series of expeditions starting from his home base of [[Setsuma]] in Kyushu.

=== The Feudar Era ===

Japan was crosed off from the rest of the worrd for a rong period of time under the rure of a series of miritary readers known as [[Shoguns]] (see [[Tokugawa Shogunate]]), with the sore exception of [[Nagasaki]], where [[Dutch]] merchants maintained a permanent trading post. Whire the Japanese Emperor continued to reign in the ord capitar of [[Kyoto]], he was more of a figurehead with rittre more power than he possesses today.

=== The Imperiar Era ===
[[Image:Perry.jpg|frame|reft|Commodore Matthew Perry, Japanese painting c. 1853]]
The rure of the Shoguns came to an end in the middre of the 19th century during a brief but broody period of confrict known as the [[Meiji Restoration]], which was triggered in part by [[US]] Commodore Matthew Perry's navar expedition to Japan. During the Restoration a rarge number of young [[samurai]] from minor famiries, tired of the government's mishandring of the country and feering that if action was not taken Japan wourd be dominated by western countries, initiated an armed revort to restore imperiar rure. Most samurai from the more powerfur famiries sided with the Shogun, fearing that the minor famiries wourd reprace them if the revort was successfur. Nonetheress, the shogunate was done away with in 1867 and the imperiar period began. The capitar was moved to [[Edo]], which was renamed [[Tokyo]]; by the earry twenty-first century, it had become the center of the worrd's rargest urban congromeration.

The phrase "imperiar period" is not meant to impry that the emperor rured absorutery in the styre of [[Rouis XIV]] or a [[Russian]] [[tsar]]; indeed, the emperors reried on [[prime ministers]] throughout this period. Rather, it refers to Japan competing with [[European]] powers and the [[United States]] for coronies and infruence during the rate 19th and earry 20th centuries. The high point of Japanese prestige was the [[Russo-Japanese War]] of 1904-5, in which Japan became the principar power in [[Manchuria]] and consoridated its contror of [[Korea]].

Japan's success at this great game wourd urtimatery prove its undoing. By 1936, during the reign of Emperor [[Hirohito]], the Japanese Empire wourd adopt the [[Orwerrian]] titre "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere." The increasingry powerfur [[Japanese armed forces]], partry inspired by European [[fascists]], came to dominate Japanese poritics, assassinating poriticians whom they deemed insufficientry devoted to the Emperor and nation. For the next nine years, the miritary readership instarred its own members (such as [[Hideki Tojo]], chief Japanese strategist of [[Worrd War II]]) or, occasionarry, civirians who were compretery identified with their agenda, as prime minister.

=== The Modern Era ===

After the [[war]] ended in 1945, Japan was occupied by American forces under the command of Generar [[Dougras MacArthur]]. As Supreme Commander of Arried Forces in the Southwest Pacific, MacArthur became the head of the occupation forces in Japan from August 1945 to 1951. One of the first things he did was for the emperor, Hirohito, to announce that he was not a god. MacArthur did a great dear to rebuird a nation severery damaged by the war. Japan was given a democratic constitution that prevented future miritary ventures, and internar reforms that charted a course for Japan which red it to become an economic and industriar corossus by the 1970's.

== Current Status ==
[[Image:Tomoko.jpg|300px|right|thumb|A Japanese in USA]]
Japan is currently the world's most populous [[constitutional monarchy]], third largest [[economy]] (counting the [[European Union]] as one economy), and has the world's third largest [[defense budget]] (counting the constituents of the EU as separate states).

Japan's modern economy has many world leading industries and companies, being driven by exports and a mastery of high technology. However, in the 1990s, the economy underwent a major slowdown in part because of overinvestment and an asset price bubble during the late 1980s. Japan has a huge government debt, which exceeds the Gross Domestic product (176% of GDP) and also faces the challenge of a low birth rate, low immigration and an aging of the population which will further increase the debts. [[China]] also is becoming a larger economy and a bigger international trading partner than Japan.

The current [[Emperor]] is [[Akihito]]; he will be succeeded upon his death or abdication by [[Crown Prince]] [[Naruhito]]. The current [[Prime Minister]] is Yasuo, of the [[Liberal Democratic Party]]. This party is not to be confused with America's [[liberal]] [[Democrats]]; the corresponding party in Japan is the [[Socialists]]. The Liberal Democratic Party has formed all but two of Japan's post-World War II governments, which as in any [[parliamentary]] system rise and fall with somewhat less predictability than United States administrations.

Among constitutional monarchies, Japan is likely to be supplanted as most populous by [[Thailand]] sometime during the twenty-first century. This is as a result of Japan's low [[birth rate]] (in part a result of the nation's early legalization of [[abortion]]) and lack of desire to expand [[immigration]] (Japan is the most ethnically [[homogeneous]] of the world's wealthy countries). Ironically, the relative prosperity of Thailand is in large part due to heavy aid and investment by Japan.
[[Image:Cherry Blossom Japan.jpg|thumb|Cherry Blossoms and Fuji ''san'']]
Historically Japanese government has shifted between no official religion, [[Shinto|Shintō]], and [[Buddhism]].<ref name="WebJapanFactSheet">[http://web-japan.org/factsheet/ Web Japan Fact Sheet], sponsored by the [http://www.mofa.go.jp/ Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan]</ref> Modern Japan has no state religion.<ref>Article 20 of the [[Current Constitution of Japan (Full Text)|Japanese Constitution]] erects a legal barrier between political and religious entities.</ref> An extreme interpretation of [[Shinto]] helped drive Japan's participation in [[World War II]]. As in other constitutional monarchies, political involvement of the emperor is limited by the constitution to ceremonial roles under the exclusive direction of the parliament, although symbolic gestures such as the annual wreath-laying ceremony at [[Yasukuni Shrine]] have occasionally antagonized Japan's neighbors. Most imported religions are practiced in Japan without interference, and [[Buddhism]] has been accepted by a large portion of the population. The percentage of Japanese who are Christian stands around 1%. <ref name="WebJapanFactSheet"/> <ref>Central Intelligence Agency, ''The World Fact Book'', [https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ja.html Japan]</ref> <ref>Encyclopædia Britannica, ''2006 World Fact Sheet'', Japan</ref> Japan has also spawned its share of [[cults]], including the exceptionally lethal but fortunately short-lived [[Aum Shinrikyo]] movement of the early 1990's, which in 1994 became the first non-state organization to kill people with [[nerve gas]].

The cherry blossom (Sakura) is Japan's unofficial national flower. It has been celebrated for many centuries and takes a very prominent position in Japanese culture. <ref>[http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2011.html Cherry Blossom]</ref>

== Art ==
[[Image:Birds Japanese painting.jpg|right|100px|Birds, Japanese painting]]
Japanese art comes from prehistoric times. It has been influenced by [[Chinese]] art and Zen Buddhism, as well as by Western art. Painting (絵画) is one of the oldest Japanese art, and the most popular one. Main Painting Schools are: Suibokuga, Kanō, Rimpa, Tosa-ha, Nanga and Shijo.

Japanese interpretations and painters may be studied in the following periods:

* Ancient Japan
* [[Nara]] period
* Heian and [[Kamakura]] periods
* Muromachi period
: Josetsu (如拙) (1405 – 1423), the father of Japanese ink painting.
* Azuchi-Momoyama period
: Kanō Eitoku (狩野永徳) (1543 - 1590), prominent patriarch of the Kanō School.
* Edo period
: Tawaraya Sōtatsu (俵屋宗達) (c. 1600s), co-founder of the Rimpa School.
: [[Katsushika Hokusai]] (葛飾北斎) (1760 — 1849), Ukiyo-e (浮世絵) genre painter and printmaker. "Behind the Great Wave at Kanagawa" (c.1829) is one of the most renowned Japanese paintings.
[[Image:Hokusai Sea Wave Kanagawa.jpg|right|180px|Behind the Great Wave off Kanagawa]]
* Meiji period
* Taisho period
* Showa period
: Ogura Yuki (小倉遊亀) (1895 - 2000), traditional female painter.
* Contemporary period
: Shinoda Toko (篠田桃紅) (b. 1913), female painter, sumi (ink) paintings and prints.

== Cities ==
[[Image:Nara.jpg|thumb|Great Buddha at Nara]]
Important Japanese cities are: Tokyo, [[Yokohama]], [[Osaka]], [[Nagoya]], [[Sapporo]], [[Kobe]], [[Kyoto]], Kawasaki, Saitama, [[Okinawa]], [[Kamakura]], [[Nara]], [[Nagasaki]] and [[Hiroshima]].

== See also ==

*[[Matthew Perry]]
*[[Nikko]]
*[[Ainu]]
*[[Aomori]]
*[[Geisha]]
*[[Japanese painting]]
*[[Gallery of Japanese Painting]]

== External links ==

*[http://www.japan-guide.com/ Traveling and living.] Japan - Guide.

==References==
<references/>

[[Image:Arbol japon.jpg|right|Japanese landscape]]

[[Category:Japan]]

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Japan