Japan, constitutional monarchy in eastern Asia, comprising four large islands, as well as the Ryukyu Islands and more than 1000 lesser adjacent islands. It is bounded on the north by the Sea of Okhotsk, on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Pacific Ocean and the East China Sea, and on the west by the Korea Strait and the Sea of Japan. In Japanese the country's name is Dai (“great”) Nihon or Nippon (“origin of the sun”), hence, Land of the Rising Sun. The Japanese islands extend in an irregular crescent from the island of Sakhalin (Russia) to the island of Formosa, or Taiwan (Republic of China). Japan proper consists of the large islands of Hokkaido, the northernmost; Honshu, the largest, called the mainland; Shikoku; and Kyushu, the southernmost. The combined area of these islands is about 362,000 sq km (about 140,000 sq mi). The total area of Japan is 377,727 sq km (145,841 sq mi). Tokyo is Japan's capital and largest city.
The Kuril Islands, north of Hokkaido and formerly included in Japan proper as Chishimaretto, were occupied by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) at the conclusion of World War II (1939-1945) under an agreement reached at the Yalta Conference in 1945. Until the unconditional surrender of Japan to the Allied powers on September 2, 1945, the Japanese Empire controlled, in addition to present-day Japan and the Kuril Islands, an area of about 1,651,100 sq km (about 637,500 sq mi), including Korea, Formosa, Manchuria, the leased territory of Guangdong (Kwangtung), the Pescadores, Karafuto (the southern half of Sakhalin), and the South Sea Mandated Territories, comprising the Marshall, Mariana (except Guam, a United States possession), and Caroline islands, which were made a Japanese mandate by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, after World War I (1914-1918). For the disposition of these territories and others acquired by Japanese conquest during World War II, see the History section of this article.

Land and Resources
The islands of Japan are the projecting summits of a huge chain of mountains originally a part of the continent of Asia, from which they were detached in the Cenozoic era. The long and narrow main island, Honshu, measures less than 322 km (200 mi) at its greatest breadth; no part of Japan is more than 161 km (100 mi) from the sea. The coastline of Japan is exceedingly long in proportion to the area of the islands and totals, with the many bays and indentations, about 24,950 km (about 15,500 mi). The greatest amount of indentation is on the Pacific coast, the result of the erosive action of the tides and severe coastal storms. The western coast of Kyushu, on the East China Sea, is the most irregular portion of the Japanese coast. Few navigable inlets are found on the eastern coast above Tokyo, but south of Tokyo Bay are many of the best bays and harbors in Japan. Between Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu is the Inland Sea, dotted with islands and connected with the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Japan by three narrow straits through which oceanic storms rarely pass. The western coast of the islands of Japan, on the almost tideless Sea of Japan, is relatively straight and measures less than 4830 km (less than 3000 mi); the only conspicuous indentations in the coastline are Wakasa and Toyama bays in Honshu.
Topographically, Japan is a rugged land of high mountains and deep valleys, with many small plains. Because of the alternating sequence of mountain and valley, and the rocky soil, only an estimated 11 percent of Japan is arable land.

Rivers and Lakes
Although Japan is abundantly watered—almost every valley has a stream—no long navigable rivers exist. The larger Japanese rivers vary in size from swollen freshets during the spring thaw or the summer rainy season to small streams during dry weather. Successions of rapids and shallows are so common that only boats with extremely shallow draft can navigate. The longest river in Japan is the Shinano, on Honshu, which is about 370 km (about 230 mi) long; other large rivers on Honshu are the Tone, Kitakami, Tenryu, and Mogami. The important rivers of Hokkaido include the second largest river of Japan, the Ishikari, and the Teshio and Tokachi. The Yoshino is the longest river in Shikoku. The many Japanese lakes are noted for their scenic beauty. Some are located in the river valleys, but the majority are mountain lakes, and many are summer resorts. The largest lake in Japan is Biwa, on Honshu, which covers about 685 sq km (about 265 sq mi).

Plains and Mountains
The Japanese plains lie chiefly along the lower courses of the principal rivers, on plateaus along the lowest slopes of mountain ranges, and on lowlands along the seacoast. The most extensive plains are in Hokkaido: along the Ishikari River in the western part of the island, along the Tokachi River in the southeast, and around the cities of Nemuro and Kushiro on the east central shore. Honshu has several large plains. That of Osaka contains the cities of Kobe, Kyoto, and Osaka; the plain of Kanto is the site of Tokyo; and Nagoya is the location of the plain of Nobi. The plain of Tsukushi is the most important level area in Kyushu.
The mountains of Japan are the most conspicuous feature of the topography. Mountain ranges extend across the islands from north to south, the main chains sending off smaller ranges that branch out laterally or run parallel to the parent range, and frequently descend to the coast, where they form bays and harbors. In the north, the island of Hokkaido is marked by a volcanic range that descends from the Kurils and merges in the southwestern part of the island with a chain branching from Point Soya in the northwestern tip. These mountains branch into two lines near Uchiura Bay, on the southwestern coast, and reappear on the island of Honshu in two parallel ranges. The minor range, situated entirely in the northeast, separates the valley of the Kitakami River from the Pacific Ocean. The main range continues toward the southwest until it meets a mass of intersecting ridges that enclose the plateau of the Shinano River and forms a belt of mountains, the highest in Japan, across the widest part of the island. The highest peak, at 3776 m (12,389 ft), is Fuji, an extinct volcano near Yokohama, which, because of its exceptional beauty, is one of the favorite themes of Japanese art. One of the subsidiary chains in the central mountain mass is called the Japanese Alps because of the grandeur of the landscape; the highest elevation in the chain is Mount Yariga (3180 m/10,433 ft). Farther south is another chain of high peaks of which Mount Shirane (3192 m/10,472 ft) is the highest. The islands of Shikoku and Kyushu are dotted with mountain ranges, although none contains any peak higher than Ishizuchi (1981 m/6500 ft) on the island of Shikoku. Volcanoes are common in the Japanese mountains; some 200 volcanoes are known, about 50 of which are still active. Thermal springs and volcanic areas emitting gases are exceedingly numerous.

Earthquakes
Earthquakes are frequent in Japan. A survey showed that seismic disturbances, mostly of minor nature, occurred more than three times a day. Geological research has shown that, possibly under the continuous impact of these disturbances, the western coast of the Japanese islands is settling, while the Pacific coast is rising. The eastern coast is subject to earthquakes affecting large areas and usually accompanied by great tidal waves; these shocks seem to begin at the bottom of the ocean near the northeastern coast of Honshu, where a gigantic crater is thought to exist more than 8 km (5 mi) below the surface. The most disastrous earthquake in Japanese history occurred in 1923. It was centered in Sagami Bay and damaged Tokyo and Yokohama; about 150,000 persons were killed by the earthquake and its aftermath.

Climate
The Japanese islands extend through approximately 17° of latitude, and Japan's climatic conditions vary widely. Average mean temperatures range from about 5° C (about 41° F) in Nemuro (Hokkaido) to about 16° C (about 61° F) on Okinawa. Short summers and severe long winters characterize Hokkaido and the northern part of Honshu. The severity of the winters is caused in great part by the northwestern winds blowing from Siberia and the cold Okhotsk (or Oyashio) Current, which flows south into the Sea of Japan. To the south and east of this region the winters are considerably moderated by the influence of the warm Kuroshio (or Japan) Current (see KUROSHIO). In Shikoku, Kyushu, and southern Honshu the summers are hot and humid, almost subtropical, and the winters are mild with comparatively little snow. Japan lies in the path of the southeastern monsoons, which add considerably to the oppressive humidity of the summers. Yearly precipitation ranges from about 1015 mm (about 40 in) on Hokkaido to 3810 mm (150 in) in the mountains of central Honshu. From June to October tropical cyclones, also called typhoons, occur; they can cause great damage, especially to shipping.

Natural Resources
The most important natural resources of Japan are primarily agricultural. Although arable land is limited, Japan has among the highest crop yields per land area sown in the world, and the country produces about 71 percent of its food. Japan's large waterpower potential has been extensively developed, but mineral resources are limited. The country must import most of its mineral requirements.

Plants
The great variety and luxuriance of Japanese plant life is mainly caused by the heat and moisture of Japanese summers. More than 17,000 species of flowering and nonflowering plants are found, and many are widely cultivated. The white and red plum and the cherry bloom early and are particularly admired. The Japanese hills are colorful with azaleas in April, and the tree peony, one of the most popular cultivated flowers, blossoms at the beginning of May. The lotus blooms in August, and in November the blooming of the chrysanthemum, the national flower of Japan, occasions one of the most celebrated of the numerous Japanese flower festivals. Other flowers include the pimpernel, bluebell, gladiolus, and many varieties of lily. Few wild flowers are found, because the small area of arable land permits little space for uncultivated vegetation in the plains.
The predominant variety of Japanese tree is the conifer; a common species is the sugi, or Japanese cedar, which sometimes attains a height of 46 m (150 ft). Other evergreens include the larch, spruce, and many varieties of fir. In Kyushu, Shikoku, and southern Honshu subtropical trees, such as the bamboo, camphor tree, and banyan are found, and the tea plant and wax tree are cultivated. In central and northern Honshu the trees are those of the Temperate Zone, such as the beech, willow, chestnut, and many conifers. Lacquer and mulberry trees are cultivated extensively, and the cypress, yew, box, holly and myrtle are plentiful. In Hokkaido the vegetation is subarctic and similar to that of southern Siberia. Spruce, larch, and northern fir are the most common trees; some forests contain alders, poplars, and beeches. The most common Japanese fruits are peaches, pears, and oranges.
The Japanese practice a unique kind of landscape gardening. Japanese gardens attempt to reproduce in miniature a stylization of natural landscapes. The Japanese also cultivate dwarf trees, such as the cherry and plum, which, through skillfull pruning, are kept as low as 30 cm (12 in). The potted flora that are dwarfed by special methods of culture are called bonsai.

Animals
As compared with its luxuriant flora, Japan suffers a dearth of animal life. Yet Japanese fauna includes at least 140 species of mammals, 450 species of birds, and a wide variety of reptiles, batrachians, and fish. The only primate mammal is the red-faced monkey, the Japanese macaque, found throughout Honshu. The carnivores include the red bear, black bear, and brown bear. Foxes are found throughout Japan, as are badgers. Other fur-bearing animals include the marten, Japanese mink, otter, weasel, and several varieties of seal. Hares and rabbits are numerous, as are rodents, which include squirrels, flying squirrels, rats, and mice, although the common house mouse is not found. Many varieties of bat exist; insectivores include the Japanese mole and shrewmouse. Of the two species of deer, the more common is the small Japanese deer, which has a spotted white coat in summer and a brown coat in winter.
The sparrow, house swallow, and thrush are the commonest Japanese birds. Water birds constitute almost 25 percent of the known species and include the crane, heron, swan, duck, cormorant, stork, and albatross. Songbirds are numerous, the bullfinch and two varieties of nightingale being the best known. Among other common birds are the robin, cuckoo, woodpecker, pheasant, and pigeon.
The coastal waters of Japan teem with fish, which are caught in enormous quantities for use as fresh food or for canning and also for fertilizer. Various seaweeds are also eaten.

Population
The modern Japanese are essentially a Mongoloid race and are similar in appearance to the Chinese and Koreans; the Japanese, however, are slightly smaller in stature. Japan is an industrialized urban society, and more than three-quarters of the people live in metropolitan areas. Japanese is the official language; in addition to speaking the official language, many Japanese also know some English.

Population Characteristics
The population of Japan (1993 estimate) was 124,711,551. The overall population density was about 330 people per sq km (about 855 per sq mi).

Political Divisions
Japan is divided into 47 prefectures. The prefectures include Okinawa, which was occupied by the United States after World War II and returned to Japan in 1972.

Principal Cities
Tokyo, the financial and commercial center of the country, has a population (1991 estimate) of 8,006,386. Other leading cities, with their 1991 estimated populations, are Yokohama (3,210,607), with excellent harbor facilities, a leading seaport and shipbuilding and industrial center, with manufactures including chemicals, machinery, and metal and petroleum products; Osaka (2,512,386), an important seaport and airline terminus and one of Japan's largest financial centers; Nagoya (2,097,765), a manufacturing center noted for its lacquer ware, textiles, and pottery; Kyoto (1,401,171), famed for the manufacture of art goods, including silk brocades and textiles, and a center of heavy industry; and Kobe (1,447,726), a leading seaport and shipbuilding and transportation center. More than 75 other cities have populations exceeding 250,000.

Religion
The principal religious faiths of Japan are Shinto, a cult based on ancestor and nature worship, with about 200 sects and denominations, and Buddhism, with about 207 sects and denominations. Christianity—represented in Japan by the Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Greek Orthodox faiths—is practiced by less than 4 percent of the population. Virtually all the Japanese, with the exception of the Christians, are regarded as being Shintoists, and the majority of the Shintoists are also Buddhists. In the latter half of the 19th century Shinto was made a state religion, stressing worship of the emperor as a divinity and the racial superiority of the Japanese; all Japanese, regardless of their religious affiliation, were forced to worship at Shinto shrines. In 1946 the Allied occupation authorities ordered Shinto disestablished and reduced it to the level of a sect. On January 1, 1946, Emperor Hirohito renounced all claim to divinity. The constitution promulgated in 1947 reestablished absolute freedom of religion and ended state support of Shinto.

Education
The educational system of Japan is highly developed. The literacy rate, consequently, is virtually 100 percent for the entire nation. English, as a chief language for foreign contacts, is a required course of study in secondary schools.

History
The early history of Japanese education was profoundly affected by the Chinese. From the Chinese, the Japanese acquired new crafts and, most important, a system of writing. The acquisition of writing cannot be precisely dated, but by about AD 400 Korean scribes were using Chinese ideographs for official records at the Japanese imperial courts. Education in ancient Japan, however, was more aristocratic than in the Chinese system, with noble families maintaining their own private schooling facilities. During the medieval military-feudal period, Buddhist temples assumed much responsibility for education.
With the onset of the rule of Emperor Meiji (reigned 1867-1912), Japan in 1868 underwent a radical transformation in education as well as in social and economic matters. A ministry of education was created in 1872, and in the same year a comprehensive educational code that included universal primary education was formulated. The government sent educational missions to Europe and America to learn new educational approaches; it also invited foreign educators to carry on educational programs and initiate changes in Japanese schools. In 1877, during this period of innovation, the University of Tokyo was founded. As a result of these reforms, Japan emerged as a modern nation with a full educational system that was in line with much of Western practice.
The defeat of Japan in World War II resulted in educational changes, many of which were recommended in 1946 by a U.S. educational mission; some of these changes were discontinued when Japan regained sovereign status as a nation in 1952. The teaching of nationalistic ideology was banned, greater emphasis was placed on social studies, and classroom procedures were redesigned to encourage self-expression.

Economy
In recent decades the Japanese economy has expanded rapidly. The industrial base of Japan has shifted from light industries to heavy industries, chemicals, and electronics, which together constitute at least two-thirds of the total value of yearly exports. In 1992, the annual gross domestic product of Japan ($3.67 trillion) was one of the largest in the world. The estimated national budget in the late 1980s included revenues of $417 billion and expenditures of $455 billion.
Before and during World War II much of the Japanese economy was controlled by about a dozen wealthy families, collectively called the Zaibatsu (“wealth cliques”). The greatest of these families were the Mitsui, Iwasaki (operating under the company name Mitsubishi), Sumitomo, and Yasuda; they controlled most of the coal, steam-engine, pulp, and aluminum industries. In 1945 and 1946 family ownership of these immense trusts was dissolved by the Allied occupation authorities. The business organizations remained intact, however, and have since acquired even greater economic power by expanding into shipping, banking, and other industries.

Agriculture
The number of Japanese farm households and the farm population have declined in recent years. The importance of agriculture, however, has not decreased. More than 40 percent of the cultivated land is devoted to rice production, which in the mid-1980s represented about one-third of the total crop income. Rice remains the staple of the Japanese diet; alterations in the national diet, however, and development of better yielding strains of rice have brought about significant overproduction. Wheat and barley are other important grain crops.
In the late 1980s annual production in metric tons included rice, 12 million; potatoes, 3.8 million; sugar beets, 3.7 million; sugarcane, 2.7 million; radishes, 2.5 million; mandarin oranges, 2 million; cabbage, 1.6 million; sweet potatoes, 1.4 million; Chinese cabbage, 1.3 million; onions, 1.3 million; and cucumbers, 975,000. Other crops include melons, tomatoes, apples, wheat, soybeans, tea, tobacco, and other fruits and vegetables.
Because arable land is scarce and consequently valuable, relatively little acreage is used for livestock. Nevertheless, Japan in the late 1980s had 11.7 million pigs, 4.7 million cattle, and 334 million poultry birds. The arable land is divided into small farms and almost 70 percent of this land consists of farms of 1 hectare (2.5 acres) or less. Most of the farmers also work part-time in industry. The land is tilled intensively; almost all farms have electricity and most use modern machinery. Japanese farmers frequently raise two or more crops yearly. Much of the land suffers from soil exhaustion. Heavy use of chemical fertilizers, improved strains, and advanced techniques, however, have made Japanese farms among the most productive in the world.

Forestry and Fishing
About two-thirds of the total land area of Japan is woodland, some two-fifths of which contains softwoods. Approximately two-thirds of the forest area is privately owned. Although Japan ranks high in world production of timber, the steadily increasing domestic demand for lumber requires the country to import much of its needs. The annual timber harvest in the late 1980s was about 67 million cu m (2.4 billion cu ft).
Fish is a food staple for the Japanese and is second in importance only to rice. Consequently, fishing is one of the most important industries, both for the domestic and export markets. The Japanese fishing fleet is one of the world's largest. The industry may be divided into three principal categories: offshore, coastal, and deep-sea fishing. Offshore fishing from medium-sized boats accounts for a substantial amount of the total catch, but only about one-quarter of the total value of production. Deep-sea fishing by large vessels that operate in international fishing grounds brings in a catch about equal to that of offshore fishing, while coastal fishing, either by small boats, set nets, or breeding techniques, represents almost half of the industry's total production. In the late 1980s the annual catch totaled some 11 million metric tons and included sardines, bonito, crab, pike, prawn, salmon, pollack, mackerel, squid, clams, saury, sea bream, scallops, tuna, and yellowtail. In addition, Japan is among the world's few remaining whaling countries, and large amounts of seaweed and other marine plants are harvested.

Mining
The mineral resources of Japan are varied but limited in quantity. Limestone is the principal mineral. Other mined minerals include coal, copper, lead, zinc, and quartzite, but quantities of these are insufficient to meet domestic demand.

Manufacturing
Japanese industry suffered extensive damage in World War II. Subsequently, the country undertook a reconstruction that resulted in a complete modernization of its manufacturing facilities. Primary emphasis was placed on the chemical and petrochemical industries and the heavy-machinery industry. By the mid-1950s industrial production had surpassed prewar levels; manufacturing growth averaged 9.4 percent annually during the period from 1965 to 1980 and 6.7 percent a year during the period from 1980 to 1988. In the late 1980s Japan was the leading shipbuilding country in the world and among the leading world producers of electrical and electronic products, steel, and motor vehicles. Crude steel production in the late 1980s was some 105.7 million tons; and pig iron output was about 79.3 million tons. Japanese industry also produced 8.2 million passenger cars, 7.6 million trucks and buses, 68.1 million watches, 28.2 million videocassette recorders, 13.2 million color television sets, 15.6 million 35-mm cameras, 6.1 million microwave ovens, 5.2 million refrigerators, 4.3 million facsimile machines, 2.6 million computers, 2.3 million copying machines, and numerous other electric and electronic items for home and workplace.
In the late 1980s Japan was also among the leading world producers of basic chemical raw materials. Japan was one of the leading textile manufacturers in the world and among the three largest world producers of synthetic fiber. Silk and cotton production during this period, however, declined in importance to the economy.

Energy
Japan is among the world's leading countries in the annual production of electricity. About 61 percent of the electricity is generated in thermal plants using coal or petroleum products; hydroelectric facilities account for 12 percent, and nuclear power plants 27 percent. In the late 1980s Japan had an installed electricity-generating capacity of 176 million kilowatts, and the yearly output of electricity was some 699 billion kilowatt-hours.
Lacking adequate domestic energy resources, Japan depends on fuel imports to meet its energy needs. Because of improvements in energy efficiency and conservation, Japan's annual growth in energy consumption decreased from 6.1 percent during the period from 1965 to 1980 to 1.9 percent during the period from 1980 to 1988, while the share of annual merchandise imports represented by imported fuels dropped from 19 percent to 14 percent.

Currency and Banking
The Bank of Japan, established in 1882, is the central bank, acts as general fiscal agent for the government, and is the sole issuer of currency. More than 85 commercial banks constitute the heart of the financial system. The Tokyo Stock Exchange is one of the world's leading securities markets. The basic unit of currency is the yen, which consists of 100 sen (131 yen equal U.S.$1; 1991).

Foreign Trade
Before World War II Japan ranked fifth in world trade. In 1939 Japanese exports amounted to about $928 million and imports totaled some $757 million. Most Japanese exports went to territories controlled by the empire, such as Manchuria and occupied China. The yearly trade balance with other countries, such as the United States and Great Britain, was unfavorable; annual imports from the United States, for example, exceeded exports to that country by more than $70 million. Allied occupation authorities permitted a resumption of foreign trade by private enterprises in 1946. By the late 1980s yearly imports totaled about $192.5 billion, and exports totaled about $269.7 billion, ranking Japan third as an export nation. The United States absorbs about 34 percent of Japan's exports and supplies about 23 percent of its imports. Manufactured goods accounted for more than 90 percent of total exports; crude and refined petroleum, for about 13 percent of total imports. Other imports included food and live animals, basic manufactures (such as textile fabrics and iron and steel), and raw materials such as wood and metal ores.
Foreign trade is essential to the Japanese economy. The domestic market is unable to fully absorb the manufactured goods that are produced by Japanese industry. Furthermore, because Japan must import much of the raw material on which its industries depend, the country also must export a substantial proportion of its annual national product to effect a favorable balance of trade. Japan has used the huge trade surpluses accumulated during the 1970s and 1980s to invest heavily overseas, thus becoming the world's leading creditor nation.
In the late 1980s, Asian countries accounted for nearly 42 percent of Japan's imports and purchased about 33 percent of its exports. Japan's leading Asian trade partners were South Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore. During the same period, countries of the European Community (now called the European Union)—notably Germany, France, and Great Britain—provided 13 percent of Japan's imports and purchased 17 percent of its exports. Other principal trade partners included Australia, Canada, and the USSR.

Transportation
The major railroads were nationalized in 1907; they were reorganized and transferred to the private sector in 1987. Railroad track in the late 1980s totaled about 27,450 km (about 17,060 mi), of which about 55 percent was electrified. Construction of a new high-speed rail network spanning about 7000 km (about 4350 mi) and linking principal cities began in the early 1970s.
Japan has about 1,104,300 km (about 686,180 mi) of roads, of which 67 percent are paved. Motor vehicles in the late 1980s included about 30.8 million passenger cars and 21.7 million commercial vehicles.
Japan ranks among world leaders in the size of its merchant fleet, with more than 9800 vessels, aggregating a total of about 42.4 million deadweight tons. Japan Air Lines, established in 1951, provides service from Tokyo to Europe, the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. All Nippon Airways, primarily a domestic service, has expanded its international operations in recent years.

Communications
In the late 1980s Japan had more than 67.5 million telephones. About 97 million radios and 31.5 million television sets were in use. Some 124 daily newspapers are published; their combined circulation exceeds 71 million. Japanese dailies have one of the highest combined circulations in the world. The newspapers with the largest daily circulation are Tokyo's Asahi Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun.

Labor
An enormous increase in the number and membership of trade unions took place in Japan after World War II. In 1946 more than 12,000 trade unions had a combined membership of about 3.7 million. By the late 1970s the number of unions had increased to more than 70,000. The combined membership in the mid-1980s stood at 12.4 million, or about 29 percent of the total employed population. In 1987 the nation's leading private trade union federations agreed to merge into a single body, the National Federation of Private Sector Trade Unions, known as Rengo.

Tourism
During the late 1980s, more than 2.8 million foreigners visited Japan each year, while an estimated 10 million Japanese traveled overseas. Japan's annual income from tourism totaled $3.1 billion, while expenditures by Japanese travelers exceeded $22.5 billion.

Government
Japan is governed according to the provisions of a constitution that came into force in 1947. Under the terms of this document, which was formulated under the guidance of the Allied occupation authorities after World War II, the emperor is the symbol of the nation.

Executive
Between 1889, when the first modern Japanese constitution was promulgated, and the end of World War II in 1945, the supreme executive power in Japan was officially designated as resident in the sacred and inviolable person of the emperor, called the Dai Nippon Teikoku Tenno (“Emperor of the Empire of Great Japan”). The throne is hereditary and descends only in the male line of the imperial family; if no heir is produced, an emperor may be chosen only from four princely families equal in rank to the imperial house. Emperor Akihito, who succeeded to the throne in 1989, is said to be the 125th of his line. Under the 1947 constitution, the emperor has only ceremonial functions.
Executive power is vested in a cabinet, headed by a premier. The premier, who is the head of the party in power, chooses the cabinet from among members of the national legislature (diet), subject to approval of the diet. The premier and the cabinet are both responsible to the diet.

Health and Welfare
In the late 1980s about 18 percent of the annual national budget was allocated for social security purposes. A medical insurance system has been in effect in Japan since 1927. Self-employed people and employees in the private and public sectors are included under the medical plan.
Social welfare services have greatly expanded since World War II; legislation enacted or amended in the postwar years includes the Livelihood Security Law for Needy Persons, the Law for the Welfare of Disabled Persons, the National Health Insurance Law, the Welfare Pension Insurance Law, Old Age Welfare Law, and the Maternal and Child Welfare Law. The entire population is covered by various insurance systems. Most working people retire at the age of 55 and receive retirement pensions amounting to about 40 percent of their salary. Health conditions are generally excellent. In the late 1980s life expectancy at birth was 76 years for men and 82 years for women; the infant mortality rate was a very low 4.7 per 1000 live births. Japan had about 201,700 physicians, 365,300 nurses, 69,500 dentists, 24,100 midwives, and 1,634,000 hospital beds.

Legislature
Before the Japanese defeat in World War II, legislative power resided in a House of Peers (composed of hereditary peers, distinguished commoners nominated by the emperor, and a limited number of elective seats) and a House of Representatives elected by male citizens over 25 years of age. Cabinet ministers were responsible to and appointed by the emperor.
Since 1947 the Japanese diet has been the supreme organ of government power. Members of the diet designate a prime minister. The diet is a bicameral body consisting of the House of Representatives (lower house) and the House of Councillors (upper house). Lower-house members, totaling 500, are elected for a term not to exceed four years. Upper-house members, totaling 252, are elected for six-year terms; elections for one-half the membership are held every three years. The lower house is the more powerful of the two houses of the diet; decisions made by the upper house may be vetoed by the lower house, which also retains control over legislation dealing with treaties and fiscal matters. In both houses of the diet, some of the seats are filled directly through district elections, and other seats are allocated to the various political parties based on national election results. In the lower house, 300 seats are filled directly and 200 are allocated; in the upper house, 152 are filled directly and 100 are allocated. All Japanese citizens at least 20 years of age can vote.

Political Parties
According to legislative representation, the major political parties in Japan as the 1990s began were the Liberal-Democratic party, the Japan Socialist party, the Clean Government party (Komeito), the Democratic Socialist party, and the Communist party of Japan. However, in elections held in June 1993, the Liberal-Democratic party lost its parliamentary majority and the socialists also suffered crushing defeat. Three newly formed conservative parties attracted many voters tired of the scandal-ridden Liberal-Democratic party.

Local Government
Including Okinawa, which was returned to Japan by the United States in 1972, the country is divided into 47 prefectures or their equivalent; each is administered by an elected governor and assembly. Each municipality in the prefectures has a legislature composed of popularly elected representatives. The municipalities have fairly broad powers; they control public education and may levy taxes.

Judiciary
The Japanese judicial system is entirely separate from and independent of the executive authority. Except for reasons of health, judges may be removed only by public impeachment. The highest court in the nation is the Supreme Court, established by the constitution and consisting of a chief justice appointed by the emperor upon the recommendation of the cabinet and 14 associate justices appointed by the cabinet. Four types of lower courts are prescribed by the constitution: high courts, district courts, family courts, and summary courts. The supreme court is the tribunal of final appeal in all civil and criminal cases and has authority to decide on the constitutionality of any act of the legislature or executive. High courts hear appeals in civil and criminal cases from lower courts. District courts have both appellate and original jurisdiction. Family and summary courts are exclusively courts of first instance.

Defense
The National Police Reserve, created under the direction of the occupation authorities in 1950, formed the nucleus of the defense forces subsequently organized when the Japanese regained national sovereignty. In the early 1990s the Japanese Self-Defense Forces consisted of about 237,700 people. These comprised an army (149,900 members), a navy (43,100), and an air force (44,700). The country also has a coast guard. All police forces in Japan are under the control of the central government.

History
Traditionally, Japan dates from 660 BC. The earliest surviving records of Japanese history, aside from Chinese accounts, are contained in two semimythical chronicles, the Koji-ki and the Nihon shoki (or Nihongi), the former compiled in AD 712 and the latter in AD 720. These chronicles purport to concern events from about the 7th century BC to the 7th century AD. The chronicles and other collections of legends were the basis of the traditional accounts of the history of Japan. The Nihon shoki gives 660 BC as the year in which Jimmu, the first emperor of Japan, ascended the throne, thereby founding the Japanese Empire.

Early Settlement
Archaeological and historical research has shown that the Ainu, a tribal people whose origins are unknown, were probably the earliest inhabitants of the Japanese Archipelago. They may have populated all the Japanese islands in the 2nd and 1st millennia BC. Invading peoples from nearby areas in Asia began expeditions of conquest to the islands. Gradually, the Ainu were forced to the northern and eastern portions of Honshu by the invaders. According to the chronicles, Emperor Jimmu, having established his rule in Kyushu, led his forces northward and extended his domains to Yamato, a province in central Honshu, which gave its name to the imperial house and eventually to all ancient Japan.

The Imperial Clan
The ruling Yamato chieftain consolidated his power by making a primitive form of Shinto the general religion and, thus, a political instrument. In the early centuries of the Christian era the Yamato chieftains exerted indirect control over various autonomous tribal units known as uji. Each uji had its own clan gods and its own domain. The most important of the uji were the Omi, who claimed divine descent, and the Muraji, who were said to be descended from nobles of the pre-Yamato era. The rule of the imperial clan, regarded as the head clan, was more nominal than actual, although its principal deity, the sun goddess, was worshiped nationally.
About AD 360 Empress Jingo, a legendary ruler who came to be considered a goddess, took over the government at the death of her husband, Emperor Chuai (reigned 356-363). The warrior empress is said to have equipped an army and invaded and conquered a portion of Korea. Korean culture, greatly influenced by adjacent China, had already advanced to a comparatively high level. During the next several centuries intercourse between Japan and Korea, including the movement of people, considerably stimulated the developing civilization of the islands. Chinese writing, literature, and philosophy became popular at the court of Yamato. At the beginning of the 5th century the Chinese script came into use at the Yamato court. About 430 the imperial court appointed its first historiographers, and more dependable records were kept. The most important event of the period was the importation of Buddhism. This is usually dated to 552, when the king of Pakche, in southwestern Korea, sent Buddhist priests to Japan, together with religious images, Buddhist scriptures, calendars, and methods of keeping time. The imported culture soon became strongly rooted in the archipelago, and while contacts between the two countries weakened after the Japanese were driven out of Korea in 562, it made little difference; by the early 7th century Buddhism had become the official religion of Japan.
In 604, the first Japanese constitution, comprising a simple set of maxims for good government, was drafted. It was strongly influenced by the centralized government of China. Originally 12, and later 8, hierarchical ranks of court officials were established. A great council, the Dajokan, ruled the realm through local governors sent out from the capital. Nara in Yamato became the fixed capital in 710; in 794 Kyoto was made the imperial residence and, with few interruptions, remained the capital until 1868. By the 9th century the Yamato court had come to rule all the main islands of Japan except Hokkaido.

Fujiwara Leadership (858-1160)
During the 9th century the emperors began to withdraw from public life. Delegating the affairs of government to subordinates, they went into seclusion and, in time, came to be regarded as abstractions in the national life rather than its directors. The retirement of the emperors was accompanied by the rising power of the Fujiwara, the leading family of court nobles. In 858 the Fujiwara became virtual masters of Japan, maintaining their power for the next three centuries. In that year a Fujiwara prince, Yoshifusa, became regent for his grandson, then less than one year old. The Fujiwara monopolized most of the court and administrative offices. In 884 Fujiwara Mototsune became the first official civil dictator (kampaku). The greatest of the Fujiwara leaders was Michinaga, whose five daughters married successive emperors, and who was the leading figure at the court from 995 to 1027.
The period of Fujiwara supremacy was marked by a great flowering of Japanese culture and by the growth of a civilization greatly influenced but no longer dominated by the Chinese one, which had been its fountainhead. The dictatorship of Michinaga is regarded as the classical age of Japanese literature. The character of the government also changed under the Fujiwara ascendancy. The centralized administration, which became rife with corruption, weakened, and the country in time was divided up into large, hereditary estates, owned by the nobles as tax-free emoluments for their official positions. Most peasants were only too willing to attach their lands to such estates in order to escape the heavy burden of taxes on the public lands that had been meted out to them. Thus, great private estates became characteristic of landownership throughout the empire.
In the provinces, local groups of warriors banded together for protection, forming protofeudal groups of lords and vassals. The leaders of these groups were often members of the Taira and the Minamoto clans, both of which had been founded by imperial princes. The Taira warriors acquired their military renown and power in the southwest; the Minamoto, in the east. In the 12th century both great military clans started to extend their power to the court itself, dominated by the Fujiwara, and a struggle for control of Japan ensued. In 1156 a civil war was waged between the forces of two rival emperors, and, after a second war, in 1159 and 1160, the Taira crushed the Minamoto and seized control of Japan from the Fujiwara. The Taira leader, Kiyomori, was named prime minister in 1167, and, modeling his policies on those of the Fujiwara, married his daughter to an imperial prince, their infant son becoming emperor in 1180. In the same year the Minamoto leader, Yoritomo, led an uprising in eastern Japan, and the Taira were driven from the capital (see MINAMOTO YORITOMO). The civil war endured five years, ending in 1185 with the naval battle of Dannoura, near present Shimonoseki on the Inland Sea. Yoritomo became the leader of Japan, ending the era of imperial administration and inaugurating a military dictatorship that ruled Japan for the next seven centuries.

Early Shoguns (12th to 16th Centuries)
Stressing the almost complete division between the civil and military phases of government, Yoritomo established a separate military capital at Kamakura, near Tokyo, in 1185. During the Kamakura period, which lasted from 1185 to 1333, Japanese art flourished. Also, from that time forward, Japanese feudalism developed until it was stronger than the imperial administration had ever been. In 1192 Yoritomo was appointed to the office of Seiitaishogun (“barbarian-subduing great general”), usually shortened to shogun, the military commander in chief. Through his military network, Yoritomo was already the virtual ruler of Japan, and his shogunate made him titular leader as well. The emperor and court were largely powerless before the shogun. Kamakura became the true court and government, while Kyoto remained a titular court, without power.
In 1219 the Hojo family, by means of a series of conspiracies and murders that eliminated Minamoto heirs and their supporters, became the military rulers of Japan. No Hojo ever became shogun; instead, the family prevailed on the emperor to appoint figurehead shoguns, sometimes small children, while a Hojo leader governed as the shikken, or regent, with the actual power. For more than 100 years the Hojo maintained their rule. In 1274 and again in 1281 the Mongols, then in control of China and Korea, attempted to invade Japan, each time unsuccessfully. The invasions were a serious drain on Hojo resources, and the Hojos were unable to reward their vassals for support during the invasions. An able emperor, Daigo II, led a rebellion that was climaxed in 1333 with the capture of Kamakura and the downfall of the Hojo. For the next two years Daigo tried to restore the imperial administration. One of his vassals, Ashikaga, revolted and, driving Daigo from Kyoto, set up his own candidate for emperor in 1226. Daigo and his supporters fled to Yoshino, a region south of Nara in Honshu, and established a rival court. For the next 56 years civil war between Daigo and his successors and the emperors controlled by the Ashikaga, who became shoguns, ravaged Japan. At length, in 1392, an Ashikaga envoy persuaded the true emperor at Yoshino to abdicate and relinquish the sacred imperial regalia. With their nominees acknowledged as rightful emperors, the Ashikaga shoguns felt empowered to establish their own feudal control over all Japan.
By this time, however, a class of hereditary, feudal lords, called daimyo, had developed in all parts of Japan. The Ashikaga shoguns were never able to exercise absolute control over the powerful daimyo. In general, the period of Ashikaga ascendancy was one of great refinement of manners, of great art and literary endeavor, and, notably, of the development of Buddhism as a political force. For some centuries Buddhist monasteries had been so wealthy and powerful that they were great forces in the country. Buddhist monks, clad in armor and bearing weapons, often turned the tide of medieval battles with their strong organizations and fortified monasteries. Local wars among feudal lords became common by the 16th century, which is still known in Japanese history as the Epoch of a Warring Country.
Three great contemporary warlords finally established order in the strife-torn empire. Oda Nobunaga, a general of Taira descent, broke the power of the monasteries between 1570 and 1580, destroying Buddhism as a political force. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a follower of Oda, united all Japan under his rule by 1590. Using his power to its greatest extent, the dictator marked out the boundaries of all feudal fiefs. Finally, in 1603, the successor to Hideyoshi, Ieyasu, became the first of the Tokugawa shoguns; they ruled Japan for the succeeding two and a half centuries.

The Tokugawa Shogunate (1603-1867)
Ieyasu made Edo (later named Tokyo) his capital. In a short time the city became the greatest in the empire, developing culturally and economically as well as politically. Ieyasu brought the feudal organization that had been planned by Hideyoshi to fulfillment. The daimyos and administrators, as well as the emperor and his court, were put under the strict control of the shogunate. Social classes became rigidly stratified. The form of feudalism established by Ieyasu and the succeeding Tokugawa shoguns endured until the end of the feudal period in the late 19th century.
Another result of Tokugawa domination was the imposed isolation of Japan from the Western world. The first Europeans to visit Japan were Portuguese traders who had landed on an island near Kyushu about 1543. Saint Francis Xavier, the Jesuit missionary, had brought Christianity to Japan in 1549. During the remainder of the century about 300,000 Japanese were converted to Roman Catholicism, despite disapproval and persecution by Hideyoshi. Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch traders visited Japan more and more frequently. The shoguns became convinced that the introduction of Christianity was designed to serve as a preliminary to European conquest. In 1612 Christians became subject to Official persecution, and various massacres occurred. The Spanish were refused permission to land in Japan after 1624, and a series of edicts in the next decade forbade travel abroad, prohibiting even the building of large ships. The only Europeans permitted to remain in Japan were a small group of Dutch traders restricted to the artificial island of Dejima in the harbor of Nagasaki and continually subjected to indignities and limitations on their activities. During the succeeding two centuries the forms of Japanese feudalism remained static. Bushido, the code of the feudal warriors, became the standard of conduct for the great lords and the lesser nobility, the professional warriors called samurai. Japanese culture, closed to outside influence, grew inward and received intensive development resulting in extreme nationalism.
During the 18th century, however, new social and economic conditions in the islands began to indicate the inevitable collapse of rigid feudalism. A large, wealthy merchant class rose in great strength. At that time, too, peasant disturbances became more frequent because of the impoverishment of the landless peasantry.
Japan's awakening consciousness of the outside world was formally acknowledged in 1720, when the Tokugawa shogun Yoshimune repealed the proscription on European books and study. By the early 19th century, visits from Europeans, mostly traders and explorers, became comparatively frequent, although the ban was still officially in force. The United States was particularly anxious to make a treaty of friendship and, if possible, one of commerce with Japan. One of the objects behind this American policy was to secure the release of American whalers from ships wrecked on the Japanese coast. In 1853 the American government sent a formal mission to the emperor of Japan; this mission was headed by Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, who arrived with a squadron of ships. Following extended negotiations, Perry and representatives of the emperor signed a treaty on March 31, 1854, establishing trade relations between the United States and Japan. In 1860 a Japanese embassy was sent to the United States, and two years later Japanese trade missions visited European capitals to negotiate formal agreements.
The opening of Japan was achieved more through the show of superior force by Western nations than by an actual desire for foreign relations on the part of Japanese leaders. The Japanese warlords, equipped with medieval weapons and trained in small-scale warfare, were dismayed by Western military equipment and dared not, at first, resist. Nevertheless, a militant antiforeign faction immediately developed, and attacks on foreign traders became common in the 1860s. The leaders of the antiforeign movement were the great clans that had always resented Tokugawa rule from Edo. They rallied around the emperor at Kyoto and, with imperial support, initiated military and naval attacks on foreign ships in Japanese harbors. The antiforeign movement was short-lived, however; it ended in 1864, following a show of force by the Western powers, but it resulted in the decline of the shogunate and the restoration of imperial administration.

Restoration of Imperial Rule
In 1867 the last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, resigned, and the emperor, Mutsuhito, regained the position of actual head of the government, with the support of the southwestern clans. Mutsuhito took the name Meiji (“enlightened government”) to designate his reign, and this became his imperial title. The royal capital was transferred to Edo, renamed Tokyo (“eastern capital”). In 1869 the lords of the great Choshu, Hizen, Satsuma, and Tosa clans surrendered their feudal fiefs to the emperor, and, after a succession of such surrenders by other clans, an imperial decree in 1871 abolished all fiefs and created centrally administered prefectures in their stead.
Under the direction of such farsighted statesmen as Prince Iwakura Tomomi and Marquis Okubo Toshimichi, the Japanese remained untouched by the European imperialism that, at the time, was engulfing other Asian countries. By concerted imitation of Western civilization in all its aspects, they set out to make Japan itself a world power. French officers were engaged to remodel the army; British seamen reorganized the navy; and Dutch engineers supervised new construction in the islands. Japanese were sent abroad to analyze foreign governments and to select their best features for duplication in Japan. A new penal code was modeled on that of France, and a ministry of education was established in 1871 to develop a system of universal education based on that of the United States. Universal military service was decreed in 1872, and four years later the samurai class of professional warriors was abolished by decree.
Changes in the Japanese political system were imposed from the top and were not the result of political demands by the people. In 1881 the emperor promised formally to establish a national legislature, and in 1884, preparing for an upper house, he created a peerage with five orders of nobility. A cabinet modeled on that of Germany was organized in 1885 with Marquis Ito Hirobumi as the first prime minister, and a privy council was created in 1888, both being responsible to the emperor. The new constitution, drafted by Marquis Ito after constitutional research in Europe and the United States, was promulgated in 1889. A bicameral diet was designed to have a house of peers of 363 members and a 463-member lower house elected by citizens paying direct annual taxes of not less than 15 yen. The emperor's powers were carefully safeguarded; he was permitted to issue decrees as laws, and only he could decide on war or the cessation of war. Moreover, the lower house could be dissolved and the upper one adjourned by imperial decree. Rapid industrialization, under government direction, accompanied this political growth.
The empire also embarked on an aggressive foreign policy. In 1879 Japan had taken over the Ryukyu Islands, a Japanese protectorate since 1609, designating them the prefecture of Okinawa. The struggle for control of Korea became the next step in Japanese expansion. Conflict with China in Korea resulted in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 and 1895, in which the modernized Japanese forces completely and easily defeated the Chinese army and navy. By the terms of the Treaty of Shimonoseki in April 1895, China gave Japan Taiwan (Formosa), the Pescadores, and a large monetary indemnity. The treaty had originally also awarded the Liaodong Peninsula (southern Manchuria) to Japan, but intervention by Russia, France, and Germany forced Japan to accept an additional indemnity instead.
The decisive Japanese triumph indicated to the world that a new, strong power was rising in the East. As a preliminary to negotiating full equality with the great powers, Japan, in 1890, had completely revised its criminal, civil, and commercial law codes on Western models. Thus, the empire was in a position to demand the revocation of extraterritoriality clauses from its treaties. By 1899 all the great powers had signed treaties abandoning extraterritoriality in Japan. In 1894 the United States and Great Britain were the first nations given the freedom of the entire empire for trade.

Expansionist Period
In pursuing its interests in Korea, Japan inevitably came into conflict with Russia. Resentment against Russia was already high, because that country had been the principal agent in depriving Japan of the Liaodong Peninsula after the Chinese war. The two countries signed a treaty pledging the independence of Korea in 1898, but allowing Japanese commercial interest to predominate. In 1900, following the Boxer Rebellion in China, Russia occupied Manchuria and, from bases there, began to penetrate northern Korea.
In 1904, after repeated attempts to negotiate the matter had failed, Japan broke off diplomatic relations with Russia and attacked Russian-leased Port Arthur (now part of Lüda, or Lüta) in southern Manchuria, beginning the Russo-Japanese War. Japan won its second modern war in less than 18 months. The peace treaty, mediated by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, was signed in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on September 5, 1905. Japan was awarded the lease (to 1923, later extended to 1997) of the Liaodong Peninsula, including the Guangdong (Kwangtung) territory, and the southern half of Sakhalin, thereafter known as Karafuto. Moreover, Russia acknowledged the paramount interest of Japan in Korea. Five years later (1910) Korea was formally annexed to Japan and named Chosen.
Japanese-American relations had for some years been strained by difficulties over Japanese immigration to the United States. Thousands of Japanese had settled in the states of California, Oregon, and Washington, and the American residents of these states demanded the exclusion of the Japanese by legislation similar to the Chinese Exclusion Acts of 1882, 1892, and 1902. This agitation was led by American labor unions, resenting the fact that Japanese laborers were willing to work for lower wages and longer hours than those called for by American labor policies. Formal protests against the treatment of Japanese in Pacific Coast states were delivered by the Japanese ambassador in Washington in 1906, and, after a series of negotiations, Japan and the United States concluded a so-called gentleman's agreement in 1908. By this extralegal agreement, confirmed in 1911, Japan consented to withhold passports from laborers, and the U.S. Department of State promised to disapprove anti-Japanese legislation. The problem, however, was never fully resolved, and it contributed to anti-American feeling in Japan, which increased in the following three decades.

World War I (1914-1918)
In August 1914, following the outbreak of World War I, Japan sent an ultimatum to Germany, demanding the evacuation of the German-leased territory of Jiaozhou (Kiaochow) in northeastern China. When Germany refused to comply, Japan entered the war on the side of the Allies. Japanese troops occupied the German-held Marshall, Caroline, and Mariana islands in the Pacific Ocean. In 1915 the empire submitted the Twenty-One Demands to China, calling for industrial, railroad, and mining privileges and a promise that China would not lease or give any coastal territory opposite Taiwan to a nation other than Japan. These demands, some of which were quickly granted, were the first statement of the Japanese policy of domination over China and the Far East. A year later, in 1916, China ceded commercial rights in Inner Mongolia and southern Manchuria to Japan.
As a result of the World War I peace settlement, Japan received the Pacific Islands, which it had occupied as mandates from the League of Nations, the empire having become a charter member of that organization. The leased territory of Jiaozhou was also awarded to Japan, but the empire restored it to China in 1922 as a result of an agreement, the Shandong (Shantung) Treaty, made during the Washington Conference in 1922. This conference also resulted in the replacement of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance by the Four-Power Treaty, by which Japan, France, Great Britain, and the United States pledged themselves to respect one another's territories in the Pacific Ocean and to consult if their territorial rights were threatened. The Nine-Power Treaty (Belgium, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Japan, France, Italy, China, and the United States) bound the signatories to respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of China. An additional treaty between Great Britain, the United States, Japan, France, and Italy dealt with naval disarmament on a 5-5-3-1.67-to-1.67 ratio, respectively, with the Japanese navy being limited to 315,000 tons of capital ships.
With the adoption of the Shandong and Nine-Power treaties, Japan demonstrated a conciliatory attitude toward China. Nevertheless, Japanese commercial interests in China were still regarded as paramount over Chinese interests. Russo-Japanese relations, which had become strained after the Russian Revolution in 1917 and the subsequent invasion of Siberia and northern Sakhalin by the Japanese in 1918, became more amicable after Japan recognized the Soviet regime in 1925. This less aggressive attitude on the part of Japan was due partly to a surge of political liberalism stimulated by the victory of the democratic nations in World War I. Beginning in 1919 the government was assailed with increasing demands for universal male suffrage, an issue that occasioned rioting in the cities. In answer to these demands the government passed in 1919 a reform act doubling the electorate (to 3 million). The protests became even more intense, however, and universal male suffrage was granted in 1925. The electorate increased sharply, to 14 million. Reflecting the rising interest in popular government, the political trend during the 1920s was toward party cabinets and away from oligarchic rule by the nobility, the military leaders, and the so-called elder statesmen. This movement was short-lived, however.

Ascendancy of the Militarists
In 1926 Hirohito, the unassuming grandson of Emperor Meiji, succeeded to the throne. He adopted Showa (“enlightened peace”) as the official designation for his reign, but when General Baron Tanaka Giichi became prime minister in 1927, he declared the resumption of an aggressive policy toward China. The impelling force in this change of policy lay in the expansion of Japanese industry, which had begun with the start of World War I in 1914 and was still continuing at a rapid pace, requiring new markets for the increased output.

Occupation of Manchuria
In the late 1920s Japan, in effect, gained domination of the administrative and economic affairs of Manchuria. The Chinese, however, increasingly resented Japanese interference in what was, technically, part of China. On September 18, 1931, the Japanese army in Guangdong, claiming that an explosion on the Japanese-owned South Manchuria Railroad had been caused by Chinese saboteurs, seized the arsenals of Shenyang (Mukden) and of several neighboring cities. Chinese troops were forced to withdraw from the area. Entirely without official sanction by the Japanese government, the Guangdong army extended its operations into all Manchuria and, in about five months, was in possession of the entire region. Manchuria was then established as the puppet state of Manchukuo; Henry Pu-Yi (Hsüan T'ung as last emperor of China) was crowned emperor of Manachukuo in 1934 as K'ang Te.
All pretense of party government in Japan was abandoned as a result of the occupation of Manchuria. Viscount Saito Makoto formed a so-called national cabinet composed chiefly of men who belonged to no party. The international repercussions of the Manchurian incident resulted in an inquiry by a League of Nations commission, acting by authority of the Kellogg-Briand Pact. In 1933, when the League Assembly requested that Japan cease hostilities in China, Japan instead announced its withdrawal from the league, to take effect in 1935. To consolidate its gains in China, Japan landed troops in Shanghai to quell an effective Chinese boycott of Japanese goods. In the north the Japanese Manchurian army occupied and annexed the province of Chengde (Jehol) and threatened to occupy the cities of Beijing and Tientsin. Unable to resist the superior Japanese forces, China, in May 1933, recognized the Japanese conquest by signing a truce.
The independent action of the army indicated the power of the military leaders in Japanese politics. In 1936 the empire signed an anti-Communist agreement with Germany and, one year later, a similar pact with Italy. The establishment of almost complete military rule, with the cooperation of the Zaibatzu, or family trusts, made aggression and expansion the avowed policy of the empire.

War with China
On July 7, 1937, a Chinese patrol clashed with Japanese troops on the Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing. Using the incident as a pretext to begin hostilities, the Japanese army in Manchuria moved troops into the area, precipitating another Sino-Japanese war, although it was never actually declared. A Japanese force quickly overran northern China. By the end of 1937 the Japanese navy had completed a blockade of almost the entire Chinese coast. The army advanced into eastern and southern China throughout 1937 and 1938, capturing, successively, Shanghai, Suzhou (Soochow), Nanjing (Nanking), Tsingtao (Quingdao), Canton (Guangzhou), and Hankou (Hankow), and forcing the Chinese army into the west. A Japanese force occupied the island of Hainan. Protests by foreign governments concerning property owned by their nationals and mistreatment by Japanese troops of foreigners resident in China, were, in effect, ignored by the empire. By the end of 1938 the war had reached a virtual stalemate. The Japanese army was checked by the mountains of central China, behind which the Chinese waged guerrilla warfare against the invaders.
Japan, meanwhile, was subjected to a controlled war economy. In 1937 a cabinet headed by Prince Konoye Fumimaro relegated the entire conduct of the war, without government interference, to military and naval leaders.

World War II (1939-1945)
The beginning of World War II in Europe, in September 1939, gave Japan new opportunity for aggression in Southeast Asia. These aggressive acts were prefaced by a series of diplomatic arrangements. In September 1940 the empire concluded a tripartite alliance with Germany and Italy, the so-called Rome-Berlin Axis, pledging mutual and total aid for a period of ten years. Japan considered, however, that a 1939 neutrality pact between Germany and the USSR had released the empire from any obligation incurred by the 1936 anti-Communist alliance. In September 1941, therefore, Japan signed a neutrality pact with the USSR, thus protecting the northern border of Manchuria. A year before, with the consent of the German-sponsored Vichy government of France, Japanese forces occupied French Indochina. At the same time Japan tried to obtain economic and political footholds in the Netherlands East Indies.
These acts in Indochina and the East Indies contributed to increasing hostility between Japan and the United States. The protection of American property in eastern Asia had been a source of friction since the Japanese invasion of China in 1937. Continued protests from Joseph Clark Grew, then U.S. ambassador to Japan, were fruitless. In October 1941, General Tojo Hideki, who was militantly anti-American, became the Japanese premier and minister of war. Negotiations aimed at settling the differences between the two countries continued in Washington throughout November, even after the decision for war had been made in Tokyo.

Attack on Pearl Harbor
On December 7, 1941, without warning and while negotiations between American and Japanese diplomats were still in progress, Japanese carrier-based airplanes attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the main U.S. naval base in the Pacific. Simultaneous attacks were launched by the Japanese army, navy, and air force against the Philippines, Guam, Wake Island, Midway Island, Hong Kong, British Malaya, and Thailand. On December 8 the Congress of the United States declared war on Japan, as did all Allied powers except the USSR.
For about a year following the successful surprise attacks, Japan maintained the offensive in Southeast Asia and the islands of the South Pacific. The empire designated eastern Asia and its environs as the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” and made effective propaganda of the slogan “Asia for the Asians.” Moreover, nationalistic elements in many of the countries of eastern Asia gave tacit and, in some cases, active support to the Japanese, because they saw an apparent way to free themselves from Western imperialism. In December 1941, Japan invaded Thailand, forcing the government to conclude a treaty of alliance. Japanese troops occupied Burma, British Malaya, Borneo, Hong Kong, and the Netherlands East Indies. By May 1942 the Philippines were in Japanese hands. Striking toward Australia and New Zealand, Japanese forces landed in New Guinea, New Britain (now part of Papua New Guinea), and the Solomon Islands. A Japanese task force also invaded and occupied Attu, Agattu, and Kiska in the Aleutian Islands off the Alaskan coast of North America. Ultimately, however, the war became a naval struggle for control of the vast expanses of the Pacific Ocean.

The Tide Turns
The tide of battle began to change in 1942, when an Allied naval and air force contained a Japanese invasion fleet in the Battle of the Coral Sea between New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. A month later a larger Japanese fleet was defeated in the Battle of Midway. Using combined operations of ground, naval, and air units under command of the American general Douglas MacArthur, Allied forces fought northward from island to island in the South Pacific, invading and driving out the Japanese. In July 1944, after the fall of Saipan, a major Japanese base in the Mariana Islands, the Japanese leaders realized that Japan had lost the war. Tojo was forced to resign, weakening the hold of the military oligarchy. In November 1944 the United States began a series of major air raids over Japan by B-29 Superfortress bombers based on Saipan. In early 1945 an air base even closer to Japan (about 1200 km/750 mi) was acquired with the conquest, after a fierce battle, of Iwo Jima. During the same period Allied forces under the British admiral Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, defeated the Japanese armies in Southeast Asia. In the next four months, from May through August, bombing attacks devastated Japanese communications, industry, and what was left of the navy. These attacks were climaxed on August 6, 1945, by the dropping of the first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. Two days later, on August 8, the USSR declared war on Japan, and on August 9 a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Soviet forces invaded Manchuria, northern Korea, and Karafuto. The Allied powers had agreed during the Potsdam Conference that only unconditional surrender would be acceptable from the Japanese government. On August 14 Japan accepted the Allied terms, signing the formal surrender aboard the American battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2.

Dissolution of Empire
The United States Army was designated, by the Allied powers, as the army of occupation in the Japanese home islands. Japan was stripped of its empire. Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, Taiwan, and Hainan were returned to China. The USSR, by virtue of occupation, held on to the Kuril Islands and Karafuto (which again became known as Sakhalin) and the control of Outer Mongolia; Port Arthur and the South Manchurian Railway were placed under the joint control of the USSR and China. All the former Japanese mandated islands in the South Pacific were occupied by the United States under a United Nations (UN) trusteeship.
On August 11, 1945, after the Japanese offered to surrender, Douglas MacArthur was appointed Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) occupying Japan. Representatives of China, the USSR, and Great Britain were named to an Allied Council for Japan, sitting in Tokyo, to assist MacArthur. Broad questions of occupation policy became the province of the Far Eastern Commission, sitting in Washington, D.C., representing the United States, Great Britain, the USSR, Australia, Canada, China, France, India, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the Philippines. A number of Japanese wartime leaders were tried for war crimes by an 11-nation tribunal that convened in Tokyo on May 3, 1946, and closed on November 12, 1948.

American Occupation
The American occupation of the Japanese islands was in no way resisted. The objectives of the occupation policy were declared to be, basically, the democratization of the Japanese government and the reestablishment of a peacetime industrial economy sufficient for the Japanese population. MacArthur was directed to exercise his authority through the emperor and existing government machinery as far as possible. Among other Allied objectives were the dissolution of the great industrial and banking trusts, the assets of which were seized in 1946 and later liquidated through SCAP. A program of land reform, designed to give the tenant farmers an opportunity to purchase the land they worked, was in operation by 1947, and an education program along democratic lines was organized. Women were given the franchise in the first postwar Japanese general election in April 1946, and 38 women were elected to the Japanese diet. Subsequently the diet completed the draft of a new constitution, which became effective in May 1947.
The rehabilitation of the Japanese economy was more difficult than the reorganization of the government. The scarcity of food had to be offset by imports from the Allied powers and from the United States in particular. Severe bombings during the war had almost nullified Japanese industrial capacity. By the beginning of 1949 aid to Japan was costing the United States more than $1 million a day.
Beginning in May 1949 work stoppages took place in various Japanese industries, notably coal mining. The government accused the Communist party, which had polled 3 million votes in a recent national election, of instigating the strike movement for political purposes, and MacArthur concurred in this view. Subsequently the government launched a large-scale investigation of Communist activities. MacArthur's labor policies were sharply criticized in June 1949 by the Soviet member of the Allied Control Council. In his reply, MacArthur accused the USSR of fomenting disorder in Japan through the Communist party and of “callous indifference” in repatriating Japanese prisoners of war. For the next year communism and repatriation were dominant issues in national politics. The Soviet Union announced in April 1950 that, excluding approximately 10,000 war criminals, all prisoners (94,973) had been returned to Japan, but according to Japanese records more than 300,000 prisoners were still in custody of the USSR.
Allied negotiations during 1950 relative to a Japanese peace treaty were marked by basic differences between the United States and the Soviet Union on several issues, especially whether China should participate in the drafting of the document. In May the American statesman John Foster Dulles, adviser to the U.S. secretary of state, was named to prepare the terms of the treaty. More than a year of consultations and negotiations with and among the Allied powers, Japan, and the Far Eastern nations that had fought against Japan culminated, on July 12, 1951, in the publication of the draft treaty. The USSR, which had been consulted also, maintained that the document was conducive to the resurgence of Japanese militarism. The U.S. government invited 55 countries to attend the peace conference. Nationalist China (Taiwan) and the People's Republic of China were not invited.
The peace conference opened in San Francisco in early September. Of the nations invited, India, Burma, and Yugoslavia refused to attend. During the conference discussion was limited to the previously prepared treaty text, a procedure that nullified Soviet attempts to reopen negotiations on its various provisions. Forty-nine countries, including Japan, signed the treaty; the USSR, Czechoslovakia, and Poland refused to do so.

The Peace Treaty, 1951
By the terms of the treaty Japan renounced all claims to Korea, Taiwan, the Kurils, Sakhalin, and former mandated islands and relinquished any special rights and interests in China and Korea; the right of Japan to defend itself and enter into collective security arrangements was recognized; and Japan accepted in principle the validity of reparations claims, to be paid in goods and services in view of the country's insufficient financial resources.
At the same time, the United States and Japan signed a bilateral agreement providing for the maintenance of U.S. military bases and armed forces in and around Japan to protect the disarmed country from aggression or from large-scale internal disturbances.
Meanwhile, MacArthur had been relieved of his post as SCAP in April 1951. Lieutenant General Matthew Bunker Ridgway, who was then commander of the UN forces in Korea, succeeded him. The United States terminated economic aid to Japan at the end of June, but the detrimental effect of this action on the Japanese economy was largely offset by American military procurement orders for the Korean War, then raging. The country's economic problems stemmed mainly from the wartime loss of overseas markets, especially the Chinese mainland. Recognizing the importance of the Chinese market, the United States in October granted Japan the right to carry on limited trade with mainland China.
On April 28, 1952, the Japanese peace treaty became effective, and full sovereignty was restored to Japan. By the terms of the Japanese-American treaty of 1951, U.S. troops remained in Japan as security forces. The Japanese government concluded treaties of peace or renewed diplomatic relations during 1952 with Taiwan, Burma, India, and Yugoslavia.
The question of rearmament was widely debated throughout 1952. The government was reluctant to commit itself in favor of rebuilding the country's defenses, mainly because of economic difficulties and legal obstacles (in the Japanese constitution of 1947 war is renounced “forever”).
After heated debate the diet in July 1952 approved a bill to suppress subversive activities of organized groups, including the Communists. The Communist party itself was not outlawed, however. In general elections on October 1, the first since the end of the occupation, Yoshida Shigeru, leader of the Liberal party, who had headed the cabinet since 1949, was again named premier.

Postwar Foreign Relations: United States
In March 1953, Premier Yoshida, after losing a vote of confidence on proposals for increased centralization of the school system and the police force, scheduled new elections. The electorate went to the polls in April and again returned the Liberals to power. Yoshida was then renamed premier.
During 1953 the U.S. government, seeking further to safeguard the country against possible Communist aggression, actively encouraged Japan to rearm. In August the two countries signed a military-aid treaty that contained provision for the manufacture of Japanese arms according to American specifications. In a joint statement in September, Premier Yoshida and Shigemitsu Mamoru, Progressive party leader, officially recommended that Japan rearm for self-defense. Negotiations with the U.S. government led to the signing of a mutual-defense pact by the two nations in March 1954.
Premier Yoshida's policy of close collaboration with the United States was subjected to strong criticism by dissidents within the Liberal party during the second half of 1954. In late November the insurgent Liberals formed the Japan Democratic party. Premier Yoshida, who was removed as head of the Liberal party a few days later, resigned the premiership in early December after failing to muster a majority in the diet. Subsequently, by virtue of Socialist party support, the Democratic party leader Hatoyama Ichiro was elected premier. He promised, in exchange for Socialist support, to dissolve the diet in January 1955 and hold national elections.
The Democratic party failed to win a majority in the diet in the election held in February 1955, but with Liberal support Hatoyama was returned to the premiership. The Democratic party and the Liberal party merged in November of that year, giving the government an absolute majority in the diet.

Postwar Foreign Relations: USSR
In October 1956 the Soviet Union and Japan agreed to end the technical state of war that had existed between the two countries since August 1945. The agreement provided for the reestablishment of normal diplomatic relations, for the repatriation of Japanese prisoners of war still remaining in the USSR, for the effectuation of fishing treaties negotiated earlier in the year, for Soviet support of Japanese entry into the UN, and for the return to Japan of certain small islands off its northern coasts on the conclusion of a formal Soviet-Japanese peace treaty. On December 18 the UN General Assembly voted unanimously to admit Japan to the United Nations. Two days later Ishibashi Tanzan, the minister of international trade and industry, succeeded Hatoyama as premier. While maintaining close relations with the United States, Ishibashi sought to expand trade with the USSR and China as a means of reducing unemployment.
In February 1957, Premier Ishibashi resigned from his post because of poor health. The diet elected his former foreign minister, Kishi Nobusuke, to succeed him. In the same month agreements were signed ending the state of war with Czechoslovakia and Poland. Japan agreed in November to pay $230 million to Indonesia as World War II reparations. In addition, the Indonesian trade debt of $177 million to Japan was canceled.
Japan became a nonpermanent member of the UN Security Council in January 1958. The House of Representatives was dissolved by Premier Kishi in April, and elections were held the following month.

Domestic Politics
In October 1958 the Socialist party ordered a strike of its members in both chambers of the diet to protest a government bill providing for increased power for the police. By the beginning of November, about 4 million workers were also on a protest strike; subsequently, Premier Kishi agreed to withdraw the bill. Elections in June 1959 for half the seats in the House of Councillors proved a victory for the Liberal-Democratic party. Shortly afterward, the government was completely reorganized.
In November 1959 more than 500 people were injured when violent anti-U.S. riots broke out in Tokyo during a discussion in the diet of a new security pact with the United States. The treaty was signed in Washington, D.C., in January 1960, and at the same time it was announced that President Dwight D. Eisenhower would visit Japan in June. By mid-June, however, anti-U.S. feelings in Japan had grown to the extent that the visit was canceled because of fears for Eisenhower's safety.
Premier Kishi resigned on July 15 and was succeeded by Ikeda Hayato, the new president of the Liberal-Democratic party. In elections to the House of Representatives in October, the Liberal-Democrats won a major victory, and Ikeda formed a new cabinet in December.
In 1963 the governing Liberal-Democrats sought to amend a constitutional provision banning maintenance of military forces and other war potential in Japan. The amendment, necessary to legalize further increases in the Japanese armed forces, needed approval of a two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives. Lacking such majority, Premier Ikeda dissolved the diet and scheduled elections for November 21. His party's majority was reduced by 13 seats.

Economic Growth
The Japanese economy continued to lead the world in its growth rate for 1964. In its drive to expand trade, the Japanese government made an agreement with China that each would establish unofficial trade liaison offices in the other's capital city. The usual five-year limit on Soviet credit was exceeded when Japan arranged the sale of a fertilizer plant to the USSR with payment extended over eight years. Premier Ikeda, who had been reelected president of the Liberal-Democrats in July, was incapacitated by illness in September and resigned as premier in late October. He was succeeded by former minister of state Sato Eisaku (brother of Kishi Nobusuke), also a Liberal-Democrat. The 18th Olympic Games were held in Tokyo in October. Japan had prepared for the event by investing $2 billion in city improvements, including new highways, subways, and buildings.
In March 1965 the South Korean foreign minister became the first Korean to have an audience with the Japanese emperor since World War II. During his visit the Japanese and South Korean governments reached far-ranging agreement on mutual relations. In the late 1960s Japan experienced widespread and sometimes violent demonstrations by radical students protesting Japanese support of U.S. foreign policy. Japanese-United States relations were strained in 1971 by the failure of the United States to consult with Japan on China policy and the devaluation of the dollar, but the breach was partly healed by the return of Okinawa to Japan in 1972.
Japan in the 1960s surpassed every nation of Western Europe in terms of gross national product and ranked next to the United States as a world industrial power. The Japan World Exposition, staged at Osaka in 1970, demonstrated the nation's restored position in world affairs. By 1971 Japan was the third largest exporter in the world, next to the United States and West Germany (now part of the united Federal Republic of Germany), and the fifth largest importer.

Cabinet Turnover
Although the Liberal-Democratic party continued to hold the reins of government throughout the 1970s, the party's cabinets frequently changed. In 1972 Tanaka Kakuei, who succeeded Premier Sato in July, agreed on measures to alleviate the American trade imbalance. He also visited China and agreed to resume diplomatic relations with that country immediately; official ties with Taiwan were then severed.
In November 1974 Tanaka resigned in favor of Miki Takeo. Miki's government had to endure the world economic recession that followed the Arab oil embargo of 1973; Japan's economy, heavily dependent on oil and other raw materials, showed zero growth during the fiscal year 1974 to 1975.
In 1975, the Liberal-Democrats were torn by factional strife and failed to pass most of their major bills in the diet. The party was further shaken in 1976 by revelations that the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, a U.S. firm, had paid at least $10 million in bribes and fees to Japanese politicians and industrialists since the 1950s. Miki called elections for December, in which the Liberal-Democrats lost their majority in the lower house for the first time. Miki resigned, and Fukuda Takeo was elected premier. He was replaced by Ohira Masayoshi, another Liberal-Democrat, in December 1978. After Ohira died at the height of the 1980 election campaign, Suzuki Zenko was chosen by the Liberal-Democrats to succeed him. Beset by factionalism within his own party, Suzuki unexpectedly resigned in November 1982. He was replaced as premier and party leader by Nakasone Yasuhiro. The Liberal-Democrats, who suffered a setback in 1983 diet elections, won their greatest landslide in 1986; to replace Nakasone, they chose Takeshita Noboru in November 1987.
Japan in the early 1980s faced urban overcrowding, environmental pollution, and unproductive agriculture, but had the highest rate of economic growth and the lowest inflation rate among leading industrial nations. Economic growth began to slow in the mid-1980s, in part because the yen's strength against the U.S. dollar had a dampening effect on exports. Hirohito died in January 1989, and his son Akihito succeeded him as emperor, inaugurating what was officially called the reign of Heisei (“achieving peace”). In April Takeshita resigned the premiership as the result of a bribery and influence-peddling scandal; his successor, Uno Sosuke, implicated in a scandal, resigned in July and was replaced by Kaifu Toshiki. Liberal-Democrats won decisively in the parliamentary elections of February 1990, even though the Tokyo stock market had begun a decline that would last until mid-1992 and see the Nikkei average lose almost two-thirds of its value. Unable to cope with economic malaise and lacking the confidence of prominent party members, Kaifu was replaced in late 1991 by another veteran politician, Miyazawa Kiichi. National attention was diverted in June 1993 by the marriage of Crown Prince Naruhito to a commoner, Owada Masako.
Confidence in the government continued to decline as the Japanese public became increasingly frustrated with the stagnant Japanese economy and corruption in the government. In June 1993 several Liberal-Democrats, led by Tsutomu Hata and Ichiro Ozawa, defected from the party, enabling minority parties in the parliament to band together and force new parliamentary elections. In the July elections the Liberal-Democrats lost their majority, ending their 38-year dominance of the Japanese government. A fragile seven-party coalition was formed; the Liberal-Democrats became the main opposition party. Morihiro Hosokawa, a former Liberal-Democrat and leader of one of the coalition parties, was elected to head the government. However, amid allegations that he accepted an illegal loan in 1982, Hosokawa stepped down in early April 1994. Later that month, the seven-party coalition chose Hata to be premier. Soon afterward, the largest of the seven parties withdrew from the coalition, leaving Hata without a majority in the lower house of the parliament. He subsequently resigned in late June. Socialist party leader Tomiichi Murayama was elected premier a few days later, becoming the first Socialist to lead Japan since 1948.