The name "Yamato" is used by archaeologists and historians
to distinguish Japanese artistic genres from their Chinese
counterparts.
When used as a contemporary term, Yamato has strong associations
with the
imperial system, and thus with conservative nationalist
ideologies.
Contemporary Japan is considered a highly homogeneous society, but
regional variation in social and cultural patterns has always been
significant. Pride of place and identification with local cultural
patterns remain strong. Japanese people often attribute
personality traits
to people from particular regions, and regional identity often is
expressed through local culinary specialties and dialects.
The Japanese archipelago consists of four major islands and over
six-thousand minor ones, covering approximately 234,890 square
miles
(378,000 square kilometers), and has enormous climatic variation.
The four
major islands are Hokkaidō, Honshū, Shikoku, and
Kyūshū. The southern island group of Okinawa (the
Ryūkyū Islands) is geographically, historically, and
culturally distinct.
Japan faces the Pacific Ocean along the entire eastern and
southern
coastline. To the north and west are the Sea of Okhotsk, the Sea
of Japan,
and the East China Sea. The Korean peninsula is the closest point
on the
Asian mainland. Japanese life has always been oriented toward the
ocean.
The currents that converge offshore create fertile and varied
fishing
grounds.
The climate is shaped by Asian-Pacific monsoon cycles, which bring
heavy
rains from the Pacific during the summer and fall, followed by icy
winds
from North Asia during the winter that dump snow in the mountains.
There are approximately 1,500 volcanoes, and because the islands
lie on
major fault lines, earthquakes are common occurrences. Only about
15
percent of the land is level enough for agriculture, and so the
population
density in coastal plains and valleys is extremely high. Because
of the
steep mountains, there are almost no navigable inland waterways.
The population in 1999 was 127,000,000. The country is heavily
urbanized,
and urban areas have extremely high population densities.
According to the
1995 census, 81 million people (65 percent) live in urban areas;
that
constitutes only 3 percent of the land area.
During the last 150 years of industrialization and economic
development,
the population has grown from around thirty million to its present
size.
This increase occurred as a result of a rapid demographic
transition
characterized by an enormous movement of people from rural to
urban areas,
dramatic decreases in infant mortality, increases in longevity,
widespread
reliance on birth control, and transformations of family
composition from
large, multigenerational extended households to small nuclear
families.
Life expectancy is the highest in the world, and the birthrate has
been
declining dramatically. Because of these trends, the population is
projected to peak early in the twenty-first century and then
shrink.
