Chugoku region
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Image:Japan Chugoku Region large.png The Chūgoku region (中国地方 Chūgoku-chihō) is located within the western region of Honshu, the largest island of Japan.
The name literally means "Middle Country", the sole surviving relic of a historical division of Japan into "Near Countries" (近国 Kingoku), "Middle Countries" and "Far Countries" (遠国 Ongoku), based on distance from the capital Nara or Kyoto. Strictly speaking, today's Chūgoku covers only the Middle Countries along the Sanyindo (山陰道) and Sanyodo (山陽道) roads.
In Japanese, the characters 中国 and the reading Chūgoku are also used to mean "China" (more precisely, People's Republic of China since Republic of China is never referred to as China but Taiwan in Japan.) The same characters are used in Chinese, but pronounced Zhōngguó.
To avoid the confusion "Chugoku region" with "China", Chugoku region is called "Sanyin-Sanyo region". Sanyin is the northern part faced to Japan Sea, which indicates "shady side of the mountain". Sanyo is the southern part faced to Inland Sea, which indicates "sunny side of the mountain". These naming originate the marked differences in climate.
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It consists of the following prefectures: Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Shimane, Tottori. Okayama is commonly included, although only Bitchu Province was considered a Middle Country, Mimasaka Province and Bizen Province, the other two components of modern-day Okayama, were considered Near Countries.
The Chugoku region is characterized by irregular rolling hills and limited plain areas and is divided into two distinct parts by mountains running east and west through its center.
The city of Hiroshima, seemed to the capital of Chugoku region, which rebuilt after being destroyed by the atomic bomb in 1945, is an industrial metropolis of more than one million people.
Overfishing and pollution reduced the productivity of the Inland Sea fishing grounds, and the area concentrated on heavy industry. Sanin, however, is less industrialized and relies on agriculture.
Kyushu and Kansai neighbor the Chugoku region.
Sightseeing
- Hiroshima Prefecture: Hiroshima, Itsukushima Shrine
- Yamaguchi Prefecture: Iwakuni, Hofu, Shimonoseki, Hagi
- Shimane Prefecture: Tsuwano, Izumo, Matsue
See also: Geography of Japan, List of regions in Japan.
External link
Reference
- This article incorporates public domain text from the Library of Congress Country Studies. - Japan
| edit | Prefectures of Japan | Image:Flag of Japan.svg |
|---|---|---|
| Aichi | Akita | Aomori | Chiba | Ehime | Fukui | Fukuoka | Fukushima | Gifu | Gunma | Hiroshima | Hokkaido | Hyogo | Ibaraki | Ishikawa | Iwate | Kagawa | Kagoshima | Kanagawa | Kochi | Kumamoto | Kyoto | Mie | Miyagi | Miyazaki | Nagano | Nagasaki | Nara | Niigata | Oita | Okayama | Okinawa | Osaka | Saga | Saitama | Shiga | Shimane | Shizuoka | Tochigi | Tokushima | Tokyo | Tottori | Toyama | Wakayama | Yamagata | Yamaguchi | Yamanashi | ||
| Regions of Japan | ||
| Hokkaido | Tohoku | Kantō | Chubu (Hokuriku - Koshinetsu - Tokai) | Kansai | Chugoku | Shikoku | Kyushu | ||
| Major Cities (Cities designated by government ordinance) | ||
| 23 wards of Tokyo | Chiba | Fukuoka | Hiroshima | Kawasaki | Kitakyushu | Kobe | Kyoto | Nagoya | Osaka | Saitama | Sapporo | Sendai | Shizuoka | Yokohama | ||
