Japan is an island country in East Asia, located in the Pacific. It comprises more than 3,000 islands. The characters that make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin", which is why Japan is sometimes called the "Land of the Rising Sun". The first signs of human origin in Japan stem from around 3,000 years ago. The Yayoi culture and a predominantly agricultural society emerged 300 years before Christ. The Nara period of the eigth century marked the first emergence of a strong central Japanese state.

Japan's feudal era was characterized by the emergence of a ruling class of warriors, the samurai. The samurai formed different Shogunates or dynasties which for the majority of the Middle Ages fought each other for control of the country. During the sixteenth century, traders and missionaries from Portugal reached Japan for the first time, giving rise to a period of active commercial and cultural exchange between Japan and the West. However, with the Boshin civil war at the end of the 19th Century the Shogunate came to an end.

In the 20th Century Japan emerged as an industrialised and expansionistic country aided by its assistance to the allied during World War I. However, in World War II, Japan joined Nazi Germany. After the defeat in 1945, assured by USA’s use of nuclear bombs, the country adopted a new pacifistic constitution and emerged as a liberal democracy. Japan is a member of the G8 and OPEC.

Inhabitants: 127,000,000
Area: 380,000 km2
Capital: Tokyo (12,500,000 inhabitants)
Languages: Japanese
Religion: Buddhism (96%), others (4%)
GDP (PPP) per capita: $33,000
Government: Government Constitutional monarchy
Climate: The climate is predominantly temperate, but varies greatly from north to south.