Japan (Nippon)

• "Land of the Rising Sun" - the first major country to see the sun rise each day

JAPAN

• 8th largest country in population

• 59th largest country in area

• 99% of people in Japan are of Japanese descent - extremely homogenous culture

Minorities in Japan

• Burakumin - ethnic Japanese, but descendents of butchers & leather tanners.  Due to Buddhist views on taking life, the Burakumin are discriminated against

• Much like the "untouchables" in India

Physical Geography

• 4 Main Islands

• Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu

Plate Tectonics

• Japan created by a converging zone - Eurasia Plate colliding with Pacific Plate and Philippine Plate. 

• Japan's largest mountain: Mt. Fuji.

Tokyo• Tokyo - the megalopolis of Tokyo-Yokohama-

Kawasaki• 1 of the 2 largest metropolitan area in the world

(Mexico City)• Most densely concentrated financial & industrial

capital in the world.

Ring of Fire

• "70-Year Rule" - the Tokyo area has been struck by major earthquakes about every 70 years

• Great Tokyo Quake (1923)

• Major tsunami in 2011

• The Tokyo megalopolis lies on the most dangerous 4% of Japan's land (the Kanto Plain)

History

• The Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive (1543), followed by the Dutch and the Spanish, bring with them the intent to convert the Japanese to Christianity.

• As more and more Japanese were converted to Christianity, the Japanese Shogun expelled the Europeans.  Japan's self-imposed isolation lasted until 1854...

The End of Isolation

• American Commodore Matthew Perry (1854) essentially forced the opening of Japan with the shelling of Tokyo's coast.

• America created an advantageous trade situation.  By 1867, the last Shogun was gone and the Samurai were becoming extinct

Meiji Restoration

• Japan planned to imitate Britain's economic emergence; however, Japan lacked the raw materials needed to industrialize, nor the money to buy them.

Lack of Natural Resources

• How should they acquire needed resources?

• Like the European way, they decided to colonize & exploit.

Japan’s Colonialism

• Took the Ryukyu Islands & Taiwan from China, defeated the Russians in the North (1904), annexed Korea, took Manchuria from mainland China in 1932 and by 1937, had control of all of eastern China.

Japan’s Militarism

• All that was left was to eliminate the U.S. and Great Britain from Japan's sphere of influence.

• World War II presented this opportunity - Japan attacked the U.S. at Pearl Harbor in 1941.

• Likely would have defeated the U.S. in the Pacific had key aircraft carriers been in the harbor as expected.

• After the U.S. ended World War II by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the U.S. occupied Japan until 1952.

• U.S. helped rebuild Japan - by 1949, U.S. was providing $1 million per day to Japan

• Japan's economy Japan's economy sky-rocketed in the sky-rocketed in the 1950s & '60s 1950s & '60s through detailed through detailed planning and an planning and an unmatched work unmatched work ethic.ethic.

Economic Development

• Japan prided itself on low unemployment

• loyalty from employer to employee and vice versa was very high

• most people were hired after graduating from high school or university and never changed jobs - no layoffs

Pacific DragonPacific Dragon

• By the 1980s was in the top 2 in the world in almost every production category.

Tough Times

• 1991 - Japan began to falter.

• Southeast Asian countries (and China) began producing quality products at lower prices

• Japan was still plagued by its lack of natural resources