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Japan Geographic Regions
The country's forty-seven prefectures are grouped into
eight
regions frequently used as statistical units in government
documents
(see Local Government
, ch. 6). The islands of
Hokkaido,
Shikoku, and Kyushu each form a region, and the main
island of
Honshu is divided into five regions.
Hokkaido
Hokkaido, about 83,500 square kilometers in area,
constitutes
more than 20 percent of Japan's land area. Like the other
main
islands, Hokkaido is generally mountainous, but its
mountains are
lower than in other parts of Japan; many have leveled
summits, and
hills predominate. Valleys cut through the terrain, and
communications are comparatively easy. Hokkaido was long
looked
upon as a remote frontier area and until the second half
of the
nineteenth century was left largely to the indigenous Ainu
(see Minorities
, this ch.). The Ainu number fewer than 20,000,
and they
are being rapidly assimilated into the main Japanese
population.
Since the movement of modern technology and development
into the
area in the late nineteenth century, Hokkaido has been
considered
the major center of Japanese agriculture, forestry,
fishing, and
mining. Hokkaido, with about 90 percent of Japan's
pastureland,
produces the same proportion of its dairy products.
Manufacturing
industry played a smaller role compared with the other
regions.
Hokkaido's environmental quality and rural character
were
altered by industrial and residential development in the
1980s,
with developments such as the completion of the Seikan
Tunnel
linking Hokkaido and Honshu. Hokkaido is both an important
agricultural center and a growing industrial area, with
most
industrial development near Sapporo, the prefectural
capital.
Data as of January 1994
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