When did Japan emerged as a nation?

In Japan, February 11th in National Foundation Day. This date is based on legends chronicled in the ancient Kojiki and Nihon shoji texts, but from an academic perspective, there is doubt over the historical accuracy.

Since Japan has no written records earlier than the 5th century, we can probably learn more from the Chinese texts. According to the Chinese text Gokanjo (History of the Later Han Dynasty), in the year 57 A.D. The king of the Japanese kingdom of Na dispatched a mission to (China), while "The Account of the Wa people" in the Wei zhi (The Wei Chronicle) contains a reference to a queen named Himiko in the land Yamatai, who ruled over 30 countries.

Although the Nihon shoki regards Himiko as Empress Jingu, historians dispute this claim. It could be that following the decline of the Yamatai rule, by the seventh century the country was unified into one polity, which then served as the basis for Yamato rule.

Where did the Japanese people come from?

Although there are people who believe in the racial purity of the Japanese, current studies hold that physical features of the Japanese people reveal their derivation from a mixture of several ethnic groups.

So, what racial groups comprise this mixture? We can say that the Japanese stock was created over a long period of time by the gradual mixture of the Jomon strain, an ethnic group from South-east Asia that crossed the sea to Japan, the Yayoi strain, Tungusic people arriving through the Korean peninsula, and the Ainu ethnic group.

日本人はどこから来たのですか？


日本人は人種的純粋であると信じている人がいますが、現在の研究では、日本人はその身体的な特徴から、いくつかの種族の混合だと言われています。

とすると、どんな人種が混合したのかということになりますが、東南アジアから海を渡ってきた種族（縄文タイプ）、朝鮮半島を経由してきたツングース系の種族（弥生タイプ）、そしてアイヌ系の種族などが、長い間に混じり合って日本人を作っていったものと考えられます。

Has Okinawa been part of Japan from ancient times?

Okinawa was not part of Japanese territory at the time of the Meji Restoration (1868), the dawn of the modernization of Japan. Okinawa's former name, Ryukyu, was given by the Chinese. The Ryukyu kingdom existed from the beginning of the 15th century, but since it was a weak country it sought support from both the Ching Dynasty of China and the Satsuma Clan of Japan.

In 1872, the Japanese government tried to incorporate Ryukyu into Japan and in 1879 they changed it's name to Okinawa Prefecture without any protest form the Ching government.

Visitors may get the impression that Okinawa is both physically and spiritually a mixture of Japan, China and Southeast Asia. The language, however, called the Ryukyu dialect, is considered to be similar to Japanese, although it sounds different from the other Japanese dialects.

When was Japan's present territory determined?

In 1945, when Japan was defeated in the World War II, it's land was reduced to it's present size, the same as it was prior to the Sino-Japanese war in 1894. Today Japan consists of four main islands: Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, plus the Okinawa islands, and thousands of other smaller islands.

Okinawa remained under control of the United States even after the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951; it was returned to Japan in 1972.

Until the end of the World War II, Japan owned Sakhalin, the Kuril islands, Korea and Taiwan, which were regarded by the rest of the world as taken by aggression.

Currently, Japan claims the southern part of the Kuril islands including the Habomai Islands, Shikotan, Kunashiri, and Etorofu as part of it's territory, and negotiations with Russia are ongoing.

Another dispute is the Semkaku Islands, which are under the jurisdiction of the Ishigaki City, 160 km north of the Yaeyama Islands in Okinawa Prefecture, for which not only Japan but also China and Taiwan claim territorial rights.

日本の現在の領土はいつ決まったのですか？

１９４５、日本は第2次世界大戦の敗戦国となり、この時点で、日清戦争（１８９４）以前の領土に縮小させられ、現在は、北海道、本州、四国、九州、沖縄と数千の小さな島々で成り立っています。

沖縄は１９５１年のサンフランシスコ講和条約締結後も、そのままアメリカの施政権下に置かれ、日本に復帰したのは１９７２年でした。

終戦までに日本が領土としていたのは、現在の領土他に、樺太、千島列島、韓国、台湾がありますが、世界の目からは、日本が「侵略」して保有したと解釈されました。

現在、千島列島の南部の歯舞諸島、色丹島、国後島、択捉島は日本固有の領土であるという主張の下に、ロシアとの交渉が行われています。

沖縄県の八重者島の北、約１６０kmのところにある小島群の尖閣諸島は、沖縄県の石垣市に属していますが、中国と台湾が領土権を主張して問題になっています。

How big is Japan?

Japan's land area is approximately 378,000 square kilometers. It is often said that Japan is a small country. However, the archipelago stretches some 3,500 km from the northernmost end to the southernmost, which means that the climate and scenery vary greatly from region to region.

A fact that is not very well known is that Japan is smaller than California in the United States, which has a land area of about 411,000 square kilometers.

日本の大きさはどれくらいですか？

日本の陸地の面積は約３７万８０００平方km。日本は小さい国とよく言われますが、それでも、日本列島の北から南のはてまでとなると、約３５００kmはあり、その気候や風景の変化たるや他の国とは違った多彩な姿を持っています。

しかし実をいうと、アメリカの州の一つであるカリフォルニア州よりも日本が小さいということは、あまり知られていません。
カリフォルニア州は約４１万１０００平方kmもあります。

Japan

Where on earth is Japan located?

Imagine a world map with Japan in the center. In any country, people make maps with their own country in the middle, and such is the case with the Japanese.

If you are in Europe, Japan is in the Far East, and you would get there by heading east starting from the southern tip of the Italian Peninsula. You would go through Athens, continue to make your way east along the 36 degree north latitude to Iran, and then after traversing the Asian Continent across China and crossing the Sea of Japan, you will reach the center of the Japanese islands.

If you are in America, go due west from San Francisco and you will eventually reach Tokyo. New York is on the same latitude as Aomori Prefecture, the northern part of Honshu (the main island) of Japan. Paris is on the same latitude as the northern part of Hokkaido and London is located north of the northernmost tip of Japan.

日本は地球上のどこにあるのですか？

中央に日本がある世界地図を想像してみて下さい。どの国でも、自分の国を地図の中心に据えています。日本の地図もそうです。
そこで、あなたがヨーロッパ人なら、日本を英語で Far East [極東]と称したように、イタリア半島の南端からアテネを経て、北緯３６度に沿って東へ東へと進み、アジア大陸のイラン北部から中国大陸を横断し、そのはずれの海を渡れば日本列島の中央部にたどりつくと考えて下さい。
もし、あなたがアメリカに居るとすれば、サンフランシスコから太平洋を真西に進めば日本の東京にたどり着きます。緯度からすれば、ニューヨークは本州の北端の青森県、パリは北海道の北部にあたりますし、ロンドンは日本の北端よりも上の緯度の位置になります。

¿En dónde se encuentra localizado Japón en el mundo?

Imagine un mapa del mundo en el que Japón se encuentre en el centro.  En cada pais, ponen a su propio pais en el centro del mapa, este es el caso de Japón también.

Los europeos dicen que Japón se encuentra en el oriente lejano. Si partimos del extremo sur de la peninsula Italiana, pasando por Atenas y avanzando hacia el este sobre el meridiano 36-norte, cruzaremos el norte de Irán, luego China y el mar de Japón, hasta llegar al centro del archipiélago Japonés.

Si estás en Estados Unidos de America, puedes llegar a Tokyo si partes de San Francisco cruzando el Oceano Pacifo en dirección del oeste. De acuerdo a las latitudes, Nueva York coincide con el norte de la isla principal de Japón (Honshu), en la prefectura de Aomori. París coincide con el norte de la isla de Hokkaido y Londres, se encuentra por arriba de el extremo norte de Japón.

Chinese Characters.

Learning Japanese implies that one has to learn Chinese in some way. How is this? Well, the thing is that the written Japanese uses a lot of Chinese characters, or more precisely Traditional Chinese characters. For me, this is one of the most difficult things about Japanese, but at the same time is the most fun part. I love that there are single characters, which have some specific meaning, then they can be put together to form more complicated word, which contain the meaning of the individual original characters. Actually all the languages have such kind of construction of words, probably what it makes it more fun in the Japanese-Chinese language is that they use the pictograms instead of words, and many times they are very creative. In these posts, I would like to show those things. I hope people get to enjoy it as much as I do.

I will start with some technical words related to the astronomy field:

天(heaven,sky)、文(word)、学(study)、星(star)、雲(cloud)、日(sun)、月(moon)、食(to eat)、流(stream)、惑(perplexity)、小(small).
 
天＋文＋学＝天文学(astronomy)
星＋雲＝星雲(bright nebula, e.g. Orion Nebula)
日,月＋食＝日食(solar eclipse),月食 (moon eclipse)
 流＋星＝流星(shooting star, meteorite)
惑＋星＝惑星(planet)
小＋惑星＝小惑星(asteroid).