The first human inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago have been traced to the Paleolithic, around 38–39,000 years ago. The Jōmon period, named after its cord-marked pottery, was followed by the Yayoi period in the first millennium BC when new inventions were introduced from Asia. During this period, the first known written reference to Japan was recorded in the Chinese Book of Han in the first century AD.
Reconstruction of a Jōmon family from the Sannai-Maruyama Site
A vase from the early Jōmon period (11000–7000 BC)
Middle Jōmon vase (2000 BC)
Dogū figurine of the late Jōmon period (1000–400 BC)
Kyoto, officially Kyoto City , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. As of 2020, the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it the ninth-most populous city in Japan. More than half (56.8%) of Kyoto Prefecture's population resides in the city. The city is the cultural anchor of the substantially larger Greater Kyoto, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) home to a census-estimated 3.8 million people. It is also part of the even larger Keihanshin metropolitan area, along with Osaka and Kobe.
Image: Kiyomizu
Image: Sagaogurayama Tabuchiyamacho, Ukyo Ward, Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture 616 8394, Japan panoramio
Image: Kinkaku 3402CBcropped
Image: Kyoto Ryoan Ji MG 4512