Chugoku region
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Image:Japan Chugoku Region large.png The Chūgoku region (中国地方 Chūgoku-chihō) is the westernmost region of Honshu, the largest island of Japan.
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History
The name literally means "Middle Country", a relic of a historical division of Japan into "Near Countries" (近国 Kingoku, but in modern parlance Kinki), "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 to the west of Kyoto, along the Sanindo (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 (Wade Giles: Chungkuo).
To avoid confusing "Chugoku region" with "China", the Chugoku region is also called the "San'in-San'yō region". San'in is the northern part facing the Sea of Japan, which indicates the "shady side of the mountain". San'yo is the southern part facing the Inland Sea, which indicates the "sunny side of the mountain". These names originated from the marked differences in climate.
Outline
The Chugoku region consists of the following prefectures: Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Shimane and 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, the "capital" of the Chugoku region, was rebuilt after being destroyed by an atomic bomb in 1945, and is now 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
External link
Reference
- This article contains material from the Library of Congress Country Studies which, as a United States government publication, is in the public domain. - 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 - Chukyo) | Kansai | Chugoku | Shikoku | Kyushu | Ryukyu | ||
| Major Cities (Cities designated by government ordinance) | ||
| 23 wards of Tokyo | Chiba | Fukuoka | Hiroshima | Kawasaki | Kitakyushu | Kobe | Kyoto | Nagoya | Osaka | Saitama | Sakai | Sapporo | Sendai | Shizuoka | Yokohama | ||
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