Japan has four main islands: Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu. About three-quarters of the land is mountains or hills. So most people live on the flatter land that is left. Mount Fuji is the tallest mountain in Japan. It is 3,776 meters tall. It is an active volcano. It last erupted in 1707, as of November 2026. Japan officially counts 111 active volcanoes, as of November 2026.

Typhoons form over the Pacific Ocean in summer and autumn. They come from the south and hit Japan. In winter, cold air from Siberia flows over the warm Sea of Japan. Then heavy snow falls on the Sea of Japan side of Honshu. More than a thousand earthquakes shake Japan every year. The Sapporo Snow Festival began in the winter of 1950. As of November 2026, more than two million visitors come each year. The 2018 festival drew 2,543,000 people. Red-crowned cranes live in eastern Hokkaido all year round.

As of November 2026, Japan is made up of about 14,125 islands, by a 2023 count. Japan covers about 378,000 square kilometers of land. Japan had 123.05 million people on October 1, 2025, by the national census. About 30 percent of them live in the Tokyo area. That is Tokyo plus Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba prefectures. Most people live elsewhere.

Japan has two sets of syllable letters, hiragana and katakana. Each set has 46 characters. Words that Japanese borrowed from other languages are usually written in katakana. Most modern loanwords come from English. Emoji began on Japanese mobile phones in the late 1990s. Judo became an Olympic sport at the Tokyo Games in 1964.

Meals in Japan are made with lots of rice, fish and vegetables. Rice is the main food in Japan. So a lunch box often has a big helping of it. People eat with chopsticks, which are called hashi. Nori is seaweed made into thin, dried sheets. It goes with rice, such as around sushi and rice balls. Instant ramen noodles were invented in Japan. In Japanese school lunch, the students themselves serve the food to their classmates.

The Tokugawa family ruled Japan from 1603 until 1868. This time is called the Edo period. Edo grew to more than one million people. Today that city is called Tokyo. In July 1853 American Commodore Matthew Perry brought his ships into Edo Bay. The bay is now called Tokyo Bay. Japan and the United States signed the Treaty of Kanagawa in March 1854. In the Meiji period the capital moved from Kyoto to Edo. Edo was renamed Tokyo. The name means Eastern Capital.

Words to know

• volcanoes: fire mountains
• Edo: old Tokyo
• emoji: tiny picture
• prefectures: regions