1.
Japan
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Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
2.
Japanese writing system
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The modern Japanese writing system is a combination of two character types, logographic kanji, which are adopted Chinese characters, and syllabic kana. Almost all written Japanese sentences contain a mixture of kanji and kana, because of this mixture of scripts, in addition to a large inventory of kanji characters, the Japanese writing system is often considered to be the most complicated in use anywhere in the world. Several thousand kanji characters are in regular use, each has an intrinsic meaning, and most have more than one pronunciation, the choice of which depends on context. Japanese primary and secondary students are required to learn 2,136 jōyō kanji as of 2010. The total number of kanji is well over 50,000, in modern Japanese, the hiragana and katakana syllabaries each contain 46 basic characters, or 71 including diacritics. With one or two exceptions, each different sound in the Japanese language corresponds to one character in each syllabary. Unlike kanji, these characters represent sounds only, they convey meaning only as part of words. Hiragana and katakana characters also originally derive from Chinese characters, but have been simplified and modified to such an extent that their origins are no longer visually obvious, the principle of the syllabic script itself is thought to have been borrowed from the Indian Sanskritic Siddham script. Although rare, there are words that use all three scripts in the same word. An example of this is the term くノ一, which uses a hiragana, a katakana, and it is said that if all three characters are put in the same kanji square, they all combine to create the kanji 女. Another example is 消しゴム which means eraser, and uses a kanji, a hiragana, to a lesser extent, modern written Japanese also uses acronyms from the Latin alphabet, for example in terms such as BC/AD, a. m. /p. m. Romanized Japanese, called rōmaji, is most frequently used by students of Japanese who have not yet mastered kana. Most kanji have more than one pronunciation, and some common kanji have many. Unusual or nonstandard readings may be glossed using furigana, kanji compounds are sometimes given arbitrary readings for stylistic purposes. For example, in Natsume Sōsekis short story The Fifth Night, the author uses 接続って for tsunagatte, the gerundive -te form of the verb tsunagaru, the word 接続, meaning connection, is normally pronounced setsuzoku. There are even kanji terms that have pronunciations that correspond with neither the onyomi or the kunyomi of the individual kanji within the term, such as 明日 and 大人. Hiragana are used to write the following, okurigana —inflectional endings for adjectives and verbs—such as る in 見る and い in 白い, and respectively た and かった in their past tense inflections 見た and 白かった. Miscellaneous other words of various types that lack a kanji rendition, or whose kanji is obscure, difficult to typeset
3.
Latin alphabet
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The Latin alphabet is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world. It is the script of the English language and is often referred to simply as the alphabet in English. It is an alphabet which originated in the 7th century BC in Italy and has changed continually over the last 2500 years. It has roots in the Semitic alphabet and its offshoot alphabets, the Phoenician, Greek, the phonetic values of some letters changed, some letters were lost and gained, and several writing styles developed. Two such styles, the minuscule and majuscule hands, were combined into one script with alternate forms for the lower and upper case letters, due to classicism, modern uppercase letters differ only slightly from their classical counterparts. The Latin alphabet started out as uppercase serifed letters known as roman square capitals, the lowercase letters evolved through cursive styles that developed to adapt the formerly inscribed alphabet to being written with a pen. Throughout the ages, many stylistic variations of each letter have evolved that are still identified as being the same letter. From the Cumae alphabet, the Etruscan alphabet was derived, the Latins ultimately adopted 21 of the original 26 Etruscan letters. Gaius Julius Hyginus, who recorded much Roman mythology, mentions in Fab, the Parcae, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos invented seven Greek letters — A B H T I Y. Others say that Mercury invented them from the flight of cranes, which, palamedes, too, son of Nauplius, invented eleven letters, Simonides, too, invented four letters — Ó E Z PH, Epicharmus of Sicily, two — P and PS. The Greek letters Mercury is said to have brought to Egypt, Cadmus in exile from Arcadia, took them to Italy, and his mother Carmenta changed them to Latin to the number of 15. Apollo on the added the rest. The original Latin alphabet was, The oldest Latin inscriptions do not distinguish between /ɡ/ and /k/, representing both by C, K and Q according to position, K was used before A, Q was used before O or V, C was used elsewhere. This is explained by the fact that the Etruscan language did not make this distinction, C originated as a turned form of Greek Gamma and Q from Greek Koppa. In later Latin, K survived only in a few such as Kalendae, Q survived only before V. G was later invented to distinguish between /ɡ/ and /k/, it was simply a C with an additional diacritic. C stood for /ɡ/ I stood for both /i/ and /j/, V stood for both /u/ and /w/. K was marginalized in favour of C, which stood for both /ɡ/ and /k/
4.
Address (geography)
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Some addresses also contain special codes, such as a postal code, to make identification easier and aid in the routing of mail. Addresses may have drawbacks, They are a means of representing a location. Until the advent of postal systems around the 18th and 19th centuries, most houses. Streets may have named for landmarks, such as a city gate or market. In many cities in Asia, most minor streets were never named and this is still the case today in much of Japan. A local postman would be familiar with the area and thus able to deliver mail, comprehensive addressing of all buildings is still not complete, even in developed countries. For example, the Navajo Nation in the United States was still assigning rural addresses as of 2015, a third of houses in Ireland lacked unique numbers until the introduction of Eircode in 2014. Many older towns and cities in the UK have up and down numbering where the numbers progress sequentially along one side of the road, Some other cities around the world have their own schemes. In these cases, the name will usually follow the house name. Such an address might read, Smith Cottage, Frog Lane, Barchester, Barsetshire, BZ9 9BA or Dunroamin, Emo, the quadrants are typically identified in the street names, although the manner of doing so varies from city to city. Street names may follow a variety of themes, in many North American cities, such as, San Francisco USA, and Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, streets are simply numbered sequentially across the street grid. Washington, D. C. has its streets running north-south and lettered or alphabetically named streets running east-west. In Salt Lake City, and many other Utah cities, streets are in a grid and are numbered in increments of 100 based on their location relative to the center of the city in blocks. A similar system is in use in Detroit with the Mile Road System, in some housing developments in North America and elsewhere, street names may all follow the same theme, or start with the same letter. Streets in Continental Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America are often named after people or significant dates. Postal codes are a recent development in addressing, designed to speed the sorting and processing of mail by assigning unique numeric or alphanumeric codes to each geographical locality. For privacy and other purposes, postal services have made it possible to receive mail without revealing ones physical address or even having a physical address. Examples are post office boxes, service addresses and poste restante, in most of the world, addresses are written in order from most specific to general, i. e. finest to coarsest information, starting with the addressee and ending with the largest geographical unit
5.
Nagoya Station
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Nagoya Station is a major railway station in Nakamura-ku, Nagoya, Japan. It is one of the worlds largest train stations by floor area, much of this space is located in the JR Central Towers atop the station, as well as in underground concourses. The current station complex was completed on December 20,1999, the station and the area around it is officially called Meieki in the Japanese addressing system. The station is adjacent to Meitetsu Nagoya Station, the terminal of the Nagoya Railroad, and Kintetsu Nagoya Station, the twin-towered station rises over 50 stories. There is the 59-story tall Hotel Tower and the 55-story tall office tower, Tōkaidō Shinkansen Tōkaidō Main Line Chūō Main Line Kansai Main Line Takayama Main Line Aonami Line Higashiyama Line Sakuradōri Line The platforms and the tracks are elevated. Six island platforms for the Tōkaidō Main Line, Chuo Line, two island platforms for the Tokaido Shinkansen are situated in the western part and serve four tracks. The station is situated in the west of the JR Central Lines, the station has an island platform serving two tracks with platform gates. An island platform for the Sakura-dori Line serving two tracks is located east to west under the concourse of JR Nagoya Station. The platform is fenced with platform gates, an island platform for the Higashiyama Line serving two tracks is located south to north under underground city Meieki Chikagai, in the east of JR Nagoya Station. The southern part of the platform is used for the trains for Fujigaoka, Nagoya Station first opened on 1 May 1886. Meitetsu Nagoya Station Kintetsu Nagoya Station JR Central station information Station Nagoya Towers Nagoya
6.
Nagoya
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Nagoya is the largest city in the Chūbu region of Japan. It is Japans third-largest incorporated city and the fourth most populous urban area and it is located on the Pacific coast on central Honshu. It is the capital of Aichi Prefecture and is one of Japans major ports along with those of Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, Yokohama, Chiba and it is also the center of Japans third-largest metropolitan region, known as the Chūkyō Metropolitan Area. As of 2015,2.28 million people lived in the city, the citys name was historically written as 那古野 or 名護屋. One possible origin is the adjective nagoyaka, meaning peaceful, the name Chūkyō is also used to refer to Nagoya. Notable examples of the use of the name Chūkyō include the Chūkyō Industrial Area, Chūkyō Metropolitan Area, Chūkyō Television Broadcasting, Chukyo University, oda Nobunaga and his protégés Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu were powerful warlords based in the Nagoya area who gradually succeeded in unifying Japan. In 1610, Tokugawa Ieyasu moved the capital of Owari Province from Kiyosu, about seven kilometers away, during this period Nagoya Castle was constructed, built partly from materials taken from Kiyosu Castle. During the construction, the town around Kiyosu Castle, consisting of around 60,000 people. Around the same time, the nearby ancient Atsuta Shrine was designated as a waystation, called Miya, on the important Tōkaidō road, a town developed around the temple to support travelers. The castle and shrine towns formed the city, during the Meiji Restoration Japans provinces were restructured into prefectures and the government changed from family to bureaucratic rule. Nagoya was proclaimed a city on October 1,1889, and designated a city on September 1,1956, Nagoya became an industrial hub for the region. Its economic sphere included the famous pottery towns of Tokoname, Tajimi and Seto, as well as Okazaki, other industries included cotton and complex mechanical dolls called karakuri ningyō. Mitsubishi Aircraft Company was established in 1920 in Nagoya and became one of the largest aircraft manufacturers in Japan, the availability of space and the central location of the region and the well-established connectivity were some of the major factors that lead to the establishment of the aviation industry there. Nagoya was the target of US air raids during World War II, the population of Nagoya at this time was estimated to be 1.5 million, fourth among Japanese cities and one of the three largest centers of the Japanese aircraft industry. It was estimated that 25% of its workers were engaged in aircraft production, important Japanese aircraft targets were within the city itself, while others were to the north of Kagamigahara. It was estimated that produced between 40% and 50% of Japanese combat aircraft and engines, such as the vital Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter. The Nagoya area also produced machine tools, bearings, railway equipment, metal alloys, tanks, motor vehicles, the bombing continued through the spring of 1945, and included large-scale firebombing. Nagoya was the target of two of Bomber Command’s attacks and these incendiary attacks, one by day and one by night, devastated 15.3 square kilometres
7.
Prefectures of Japan
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The Prefectures of Japan consist of 47 prefectures. They form the first level of jurisdiction and administrative division of Japan and they consist of 43 prefectures proper, two urban prefectures, one circuit or territory and one metropolis. The Meiji Fuhanken sanchisei administration created the first prefectures to replace the provinces of Japan in 1868, each prefectures chief executive is a directly-elected governor. Ordinances and budgets are enacted by an assembly whose members are elected for four-year terms. Under the current Local Autonomy Law, each prefecture is subdivided into cities and districts and each district into towns, for example, Hokkaido has 14 subprefectures that act as branch offices of the prefecture. Some other prefectures also have offices that carry out prefectural administrative functions outside the capital. Tokyo, the capital of Japan, is a merged city-prefecture, the Wests use of prefecture to label these Japanese regions stems from 16th-century Portuguese explorers and traders use of prefeitura to describe the fiefdoms they encountered there. Its original sense in Portuguese, however, was closer to municipality than province and those fiefs were headed by a local warlord or family. Though the fiefs have long since been dismantled, merged, and reorganized multiple times, and been granted legislative governance and oversight, the Meiji government established the current system in July 1871 with the abolition of the Han system and establishment of the prefecture system. Although there were initially over 300 prefectures, many of them being former Han territories, this number was reduced to 72 in the part of 1871. The Local Autonomy Law of 1947 gave more power to prefectures. In 2003, then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi proposed that the government consolidate the current prefectures into about 10 regional states, the plan called for each region to have greater autonomy than existing prefectures. This process would reduce the number of administrative regions and cut administrative costs. As of August 2012, no reorganization has been scheduled, the central government delegates many functions to the prefectures and municipalities, but retains the overall right to control them. Although local government expenditure accounts for 70 percent of government expenditure, the central government controls local budgets, tax rates. Historically, during the Edo period, the Tokugawa shogunate established bugyō-ruled zones around the nine largest cities in Japan, and 302 township-ruled zones elsewhere. When the Meiji government began to create the system in 1868, the nine bugyō-ruled zones became fu, while the township-ruled zones. Later, in 1871, the government designated Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto as fu, during World War II, in 1943, Tokyo became a to, a new type of pseudo-prefecture
8.
Tokyo
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Tokyo, officially Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan and one of its 47 prefectures. The Greater Tokyo Area is the most populous area in the world. It is the seat of the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese government, Tokyo is in the Kantō region on the southeastern side of the main island Honshu and includes the Izu Islands and Ogasawara Islands. Formerly known as Edo, it has been the de facto seat of government since 1603 when Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu made the city his headquarters. It officially became the capital after Emperor Meiji moved his seat to the city from the old capital of Kyoto in 1868, Tokyo Metropolis was formed in 1943 from the merger of the former Tokyo Prefecture and the city of Tokyo. The Tokyo metropolitan government administers the 23 Special Wards of Tokyo, the metropolitan government also administers 39 municipalities in the western part of the prefecture and the two outlying island chains. The population of the wards is over 9 million people. The prefecture is part of the worlds most populous metropolitan area with upwards of 37.8 million people, the city hosts 51 of the Fortune Global 500 companies, the highest number of any city in the world. Tokyo ranked third in the International Financial Centres Development IndexEdit, the city is also home to various television networks such as Fuji TV, Tokyo MX, TV Tokyo, TV Asahi, Nippon Television, NHK and the Tokyo Broadcasting System. Tokyo ranked first in the Global Economic Power Index and fourth in the Global Cities Index. The city is considered a world city – as listed by the GaWCs 2008 inventory – and in 2014. In 2015, Tokyo was named the Most Liveable City in the world by the magazine Monocle, the Michelin Guide has awarded Tokyo by far the most Michelin stars of any city in the world. Tokyo ranked first in the world in the Safe Cities Index, the 2016 edition of QS Best Student Cities ranked Tokyo as the 3rd-best city in the world to be a university student. Tokyo hosted the 1964 Summer Olympics, the 1979 G-7 summit, the 1986 G-7 summit, and the 1993 G-7 summit, and will host the 2020 Summer Olympics, Tokyo was originally known as Edo, which means estuary. During the early Meiji period, the city was also called Tōkei, some surviving official English documents use the spelling Tokei. However, this pronunciation is now obsolete, the name Tokyo was first suggested in 1813 in the book Kondō Hisaku, written by Satō Nobuhiro. When Ōkubo Toshimichi proposed the renaming to the government during the Meiji Restoration, according to Oda Kanshi, Tokyo was originally a small fishing village named Edo, in what was formerly part of the old Musashi Province. Edo was first fortified by the Edo clan, in the twelfth century
9.
Hokkaido
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Hokkaido, formerly known as Ezo, Yezo, Yeso, or Yesso, is the second largest island of Japan, and the largest and northernmost prefecture. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaido from Honshu, the two islands are connected by the underwater railway Seikan Tunnel. The largest city on Hokkaido is its capital, Sapporo, which is also its only ordinance-designated city, about 43 km north of Hokkaido lies Sakhalin island, Russia, whereas to its east and north-east are the disputed Kuril Islands. Hokkaido was settled by the Ainu, Nivkh, and Orok before recorded history, the Nihon Shoki, finished in 720 AD, is often said to be the first mention of Hokkaido in recorded history. According to the text, Abe no Hirafu led a navy and army to northern areas from 658 to 660 and came into contact with the Mishihase. One of the places Hirafu went to was called Watarishima, which is believed to be present-day Hokkaido. During the Nara and Heian periods, people in Hokkaido conducted trade with Dewa Province, from the Middle Ages, the people in Hokkaido began to be called Ezo. Hokkaido, formerly known as Ezochi Ezochi or Ezogashima, the Ezo mainly relied upon hunting and fishing and obtained rice and iron through trade with the Japanese. During the Muromachi period, the Japanese created a settlement at the south of the Oshima Peninsula, as more people moved to the settlement to avoid battles, disputes arose between the Japanese and the Ainu. The disputes eventually developed into a war, takeda Nobuhiro killed the Ainu leader, Koshamain, and defeated the opposition in 1457. Nobuhiros descendants became the rulers of the Matsumae-han, which was granted trading rights with the Ainu in the Azuchi-Momoyama. The Matsumae familys economy relied upon trade with the Ainu and they held authority over the south of Ezochi until the end of the Edo period in 1868. The Matsumae clan rule over the Ainu must be understood in the context of the expansion of the Japanese feudal state, medieval military leaders in northern Honshū maintained only tenuous political and cultural ties to the imperial court and its proxies, the Kamakura Shogunate and Ashikaga Shogunate. Feudal strongmen sometimes located themselves within medieval institutional order, taking shogunal titles, in fact many of the feudal strongmen were descended from Emishi military leaders who had been assimilated into Japanese society. The Matsumae clan were of Yamato descent like other ethnic Japanese people, the Emishi were conquered and integrated into the Japanese state dating back as far as the 8th century, and as result began to lose their distinctive culture and ethnicity as they became minorities. By the time the Matsumae clan ruled over the Ainu most of the Emishi were ethnically mixed, there were numerous revolts by the Ainu against feudal rule. The last large-scale resistance was Shakushains Revolt in 1669–1672, in 1789, a smaller movement, the Menashi-Kunashir Rebellion, was also crushed. After that rebellion the terms Japanese and Ainu referred to clearly distinguished groups, in 1799–1821 and 1855–1858 the Edo Shogunate took direct control over Hokkaido in response to a perceived threat from Russia
10.
Osaka Prefecture
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Osaka Prefecture is a prefecture located in the Kansai region on Honshu, the main island of Japan. The capital is the city of Osaka and it is the center of Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto area. Osaka is one of the two prefectures of Japan, Kyoto being the other. Until the Meiji Restoration, the area of Osaka prefecture was known as Kawachi, Izumi, Osaka Prefecture was created on June 21,1868, at the very beginning of the Meiji era. During the instigation of Fuhanken Sanchisei in 1868, the received its suffix fu. On September 1,1956, the city of Osaka was promoted to a city designated by government ordinance, in 2000, Fusae Ota became Japans first female governor when she replaced Knock Yokoyama, who resigned after prosecution for sexual harassment. On April 1,2006, the city of Sakai was promoted to a city designated by government ordinance, in 2008, Tōru Hashimoto, previously famous as a counselor on television, was elected at the age of 38 as the youngest governor in Japan. In the 2011 local elections the association was able to win the majority of the prefectural seats, the plan was narrowly defeated in the 2015 referendum. Osaka Prefecture neighbors the prefectures of Hyōgo and Kyoto in the north, Nara in the east, the west is open to Osaka Bay. The Yodo and Yamato Rivers flow through the prefecture, prior to the construction of Kansai International Airport, Osaka was the smallest prefecture in Japan. The artificial island on which the airport was built added enough area to make it larger than Kagawa Prefecture. This represented approximately 48% of the Kinki region, the per capita income was ¥3.0 million, seventh in the nation. Commercial sales the year was ¥60.1 trillion. Overshadowed by such globally renowned electronics giants as Panasonic and Sharp, the number of SMEs based in Osaka in 2006 was 330,737, accounting for 99. 6% of the total number of businesses in the prefecture. The Osaka Securities Exchange, specializing in such as Nikkei 225 Futures, is based in Osaka. There are many electrical, chemical, pharmaceutical, heavy industry, food, and housing companies in Osaka Prefecture. According to the 2005 Population Census of Japan, Osaka prefecture has a population of 8,817,166, as of 2013 this prefecture has about 200,000 ethnic Korean persons, the largest such population of any prefecture in Japan. As of 2013 most ethnic Korean children attend ordinary Japanese public schools, although some Korean schools operated by the Chongryon, during the Japanese rule of Korea many ethnic Koreans came to the Osaka area to look for work
11.
Kyoto Prefecture
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Kyoto Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan in the Kansai region of the island of Honshu. The capital is the city of Kyoto, until the Meiji Restoration, the area of Kyoto Prefecture was known as Yamashiro. For most of its history, the city of Kyoto was Japans Imperial capital, the citys history can be traced back as far as the 6th century. In 544, the Aoi Matsuri was held in Kyoto to pray for good harvest, Kyoto did not start out as Japans capital. A noteworthy earlier capital was Nara, in 741, Emperor Shōmu moved the capital briefly to Kuni-kyo, between the cities of Nara and Kyoto, in present-day Kyoto Prefecture. In 784, the capital was moved to Nagaokakyō, also in present-day Kyoto Prefecture, in 794, Emperor Kanmu moved the capital to Heian-kyo, and this was the beginning of the current-day city of Kyoto. Even today, almost all of the streets, houses, stores, temples and shrines in Kyoto exist where they were placed in this year, Imperial rule was briefly restored in 1333, but another samurai clan established a new shogunate in Kyoto three years later. In 1467, a civil war, the Ōnin no Ran, took place inside Kyoto. Japan plunged into the age of warring feudal lords, a new strong man, Tokugawa Ieyasu, established the shogunate at Edo in 1603. In the 15th century AD, tea-jars were brought by the shoguns to Uji in Kyoto from the Philippines which was used in the Japanese tea ceremony, the Meiji Restoration returned Japan to imperial rule in 1868. Emperor Meiji, who was now the absolute sovereign, went to stay in Tokyo during the next year, the imperial court has not returned to Kyoto since then. During the instigation of Fuhanken Sanchisei in 1868, the received its suffix fu. The subsequent reorganization of the old provincial system merged the former Tango Province, Yamashiro Province, although many Japanese major cities were heavily bombed by U. S. bombers during World War II, the old capital escaped such devastating bombing. Sixth Army was headquartered in Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture is almost in the center of Honshu and of Japan. It covers an area of 4,612.71 square kilometres, to the north, it faces the Sea of Japan and Fukui Prefecture. To the south, it faces Osaka and Nara Prefectures, to the east, it faces Mie and Shiga Prefectures. To the west, it faces Hyōgo Prefecture, the prefecture is separated in the middle by the Tanba Mountains. This makes its climate very different in the north and south, fifteen cities are located in Kyoto Prefecture, These are the towns and villages in each district, The city of Kyoto is famous for tourism
12.
Municipalities of Japan
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Japan has three levels of government, national, prefectural, and municipal. The nation is divided into 47 prefectures, each prefecture consists of numerous municipalities, with 1,719 in total. There are four types of municipalities in Japan, cities, towns, villages, in Japanese, this system is known as shikuchōson, where each kanji in the word represents one of the four types of municipalities. The status of a municipality, if it is a village, the least-populated city, Utashinai, Hokkaidō, has a population of merely four thousand, while a town in the same prefecture, Otofuke, Hokkaidō, has nearly forty thousand residents. Some designated cities also have further administrative subdivisions, also known as wards, but, unlike the Special wards of Tokyo, these wards are not municipalities. Tokyo Prefecture now encompasses 23 special wards, each a city itself, as well as many other cities, towns and even villages on the Japanese mainland. Each of the 23 special wards of Tokyo is legally equivalent to a city, for information on the former city of Tokyo, see Tokyo City, for information about present-day Tokyo Prefecture, see Tokyo. See List of cities in Japan for a complete list of cities, see also, Core city The same kanji which designates a town is also sometimes used for addresses of sections of an urban area. In rare cases, a village might even contain a section with the same type of designation. Although the kanji is the same, neither of these sections are municipalities unto themselves. Subprefectures are branch offices of the prefectures and not municipalities by themselves, districts are not current municipalities but names of groups of towns and villages. Provinces are not current municipalities but names of geographical regions similar to prefectures
13.
Cities of Japan
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A city is a local administrative unit in Japan. Cities are ranked on the level as towns and villages. Like other contemporary administrative units, they are defined by the Local Autonomy Law of 1947, a city can theoretically be demoted to a town or village when it fails to meet any of these conditions, but such a demotion has not happened to date. The least populous city, Utashinai, Hokkaido, has a population of six thousand, while a town in the prefecture, Otofuke. Many municipalities gained city status under this eased standard, the Cabinet of Japan can designate cities of at least 200,000 inhabitants to have the status of special city, core city, or designated city. These statuses expand the scope of authority delegated from the prefectural government to the city government. Tokyo, Japan’s capital, existed as a city until 1943, the 23 special wards of Tokyo, which constitute the core of the Tokyo metropolitan area, each have an administrative status analogous to that of cities. Tokyo also has several other incorporated cities, towns and villages within its jurisdiction. J, jacobs at Urban Studies Research, Vol.2011, doi,10. 1155/2011/692764 Large City System of Japan, graphic shows Japanese city types at p.1
14.
Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan
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The city government is generally delegated the various minor administrative functions in each area, and the prefectural government retains authority over major decisions. For instance, pharmaceutical retailers and small clinics can be licensed by designated city governments, in some cities, ward offices are responsible for business licensing, construction permits and other administrative matters. The structure and the authorities of the wards are determined by municipal ordinances, the 23 special wards of Tokyo are not part of this system, as Tokyo is a prefecture, and its wards are effectively independent cities. No cities designated by government ordinance have ever lost that status, cities designated by government ordinance have been established since 1956. To become a candidate for designated city status, a city must have a greater than 500,000. An application for designation is made by a city with the approval of both the city and the prefectural assemblies, the following cities have populations greater than 500,000 but have not yet been nominated. The first form of the city system was enacted under Japan local government system in 1878 with the introduction of wards. Under that system, wards existed in every city, most cities had only one ward, but the largest cities at the time were divided into 15,4, and 2 wards, respectively. In 1898, the three cities were allowed to form city assemblies, the ward system was adopted by three more cities prior to World War II, Nagoya, Yokohama, and Kobe. Under a 1911 statute, wards were granted a corporate personality, following the war, the 1947 Local Autonomy Law grandfathered in the five subdivided cities as special cities. The system was replaced by the city system when the Local Autonomy Law was amended. Administrative divisions of Japan Urban area Japans Evolving Nested Municipal Hierarchy, The Race for Local Power in the 2000s, by A. J
15.
Wards of Japan
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A ward is a subdivision of the cities of Japan that are large enough to have been designated by government ordinance. Wards are used to each city designated by government ordinance. The 23 special wards of Tokyo have a status, and are not the same as other entities referred to as ku. Wards are local entities directly controlled by the municipal government and they handle administrative functions such as koseki registration, health insurance, and property taxation. Many wards have affiliated residents organizations for a number of tasks, for more information, see Special wards of Tokyo. The special wards of Tokyo are not normal wards in the sense of the term
16.
Special wards of Tokyo
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The special wards are 23 municipalities that together make up the core and the most populous part of Tokyo, Japan. Together, they occupy the land that was originally Tokyo City before it was abolished in 1943 to become part of the newly created Tokyo Metropolis, the special wards structure was established under the Japanese Local Autonomy Act and is unique to Tokyo. In Japanese, they are known as the 23 wards. Confusingly, all refer to themselves as a city in English. Moreover, in everyday English, Tokyo as a whole is referred to as a city. Thus, the closest English equivalents for the special wards would be the London boroughs, and this is merely a grouping of special wards, there is no associated single government body of wards separate from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. These services are handled by the Tokyo metropolitan government, whereas cities would provide these services themselves. This situation is identical between the Federal District and its 31 administrative regions in Brazil, waste disposal is handled by each ward under direction of the metropolitan government. Unlike other municipalities, special wards were not considered to be local public entities for purposes of the Constitution of Japan. This means that they had no right to pass their own legislation. The denial of elected mayors to the wards was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in the 1963 decision Japan v. Kobayashi et al. The word special distinguishes them from the wards of other major Japanese cities, before 1943, the wards of Tokyo City were no different from the wards of Osaka or Kyoto. These original wards numbered 15 in 1889, large areas from five surrounding districts were merged into the city in 1932 and organized in 20 new wards, bringing the total to 35, the expanded city was also referred to as Greater Tokyo. By this merger, together with ones in 1920 and 1936. The 35 wards of the city were integrated into 22 on March 15,1947 just before the legal definition of special wards was given by the Local Autonomy Law. The 23rd ward, Nerima, was formed on August 1,1947 when Itabashi was split again, the postwar reorganization under the US-led occupation authorities democratized the prefectural administrations but did not include the reinstitution of Tokyo City. Each special ward has its own elected mayor and assembly, in 2000, the National Diet designated the special wards as local public entities, giving them a legal status similar to cities. The wards vary greatly in area and population, and some are expanding as artificial islands are built, setagaya has the most people, while neighboring Ōta has the largest area
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Districts of Japan
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As of 2008, cities belong directly to prefectures and are independent from districts. In Japan, towns and villages belong to districts and the districts possess little to no administrative authority, the districts are used primarily in the Japanese addressing system and to identify the relevant geographical areas and collections of nearby towns and villages. The district was initially called kōri and has ancient roots in Japan, although the Nihon Shoki says they were established during the Taika Reforms, kōri was originally written 評. It was not until the Taihō Code that kōri came to be written 郡, under the Taihō Code, the administrative unit of province was above district, and the village was below. Each jurisdiction refers to its position along the river from which the former province. Kamikawa means upper course of the river, Nakagawa means middle course, jacobs at Urban Studies Research, Vol.2011, doi,10. 1155/2011/692764 Graphic shows relationships among Japanese cities at p.7 of Large City System of Japan Text of the Local Government Law
18.
Street or road name
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A street or road name or odonym is an identifying name given to a street. The street name usually forms part of the address, buildings are often given numbers along the street to further help identify them. Names are often given in a form, an individual name known as the specific. Examples are Main Road, Fleet Street and Park Avenue, the type of street stated, however, can sometimes be misleading, a street named Park Avenue need not have the characteristics of an avenue in the generic sense. Some street names have only one element, such as Broadway, The Mall, a street name can also include a direction especially in cities with a grid-numbering system. Examples include E Roosevelt Boulevard and 14th Street NW and these directions are often used to differentiate two sections of a street. Other qualifiers may be used for purpose as well. Examples, upper/lower, old/new, or adding extension, Main Street and High Street are common names for the major street in the middle of a shopping area in the United States and the United Kingdom, respectively. The most common name in the US is 2nd or Second. The etymology of a name is sometimes very obvious. In the United States, most streets are named after numbers, landscapes, trees, Some streets, such as Elm Street in East Machias, Maine, have been renamed due to features changing. Elm Streets new name, Jacksonville Road, was chosen because it leads to the village of Jacksonville and its former name was chosen because of elm trees, it was renamed when all of the trees along the street succumbed to Dutch elm disease. The Shambles, derived from the Anglo-Saxon term fleshammels, is a street name which still exists in various cities. The best-known example is in York, the unusual etymologies of quite a few street names in the United Kingdom are documented in Rude Britain, complete with photographs of local signage. In the past, many streets were named for the type of commerce or industry found there and this rarely happens in modern times, but many such older names are still common. Examples are Londons Haymarket, Barcelonas Carrer de Moles, where the used to have their shops. Some streets are named for landmarks that were in the street, or nearby, such names are often retained after the landmark disappears. Barcelonas La Rambla is officially a series of streets, only the convent of Santa Monica survives as a building, and it has been converted to a museum
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Kyoto
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Kyoto is a city located in the central part of the island of Honshu, Japan. It has a close to 1.5 million. Kyoto is also known as the thousand-year capital, in Japanese, the city has been called Kyō, Miyako, or Kyō no Miyako. In the 11th century, the city was renamed Kyoto, after the Chinese word for capital city, after the city of Edo was renamed Tokyo in 1868, and the seat of the Emperor was transferred there, Kyoto was known for a short time as Saikyō. Obsolete spellings for the name include Kioto, Miaco and Meaco. Another term commonly used to refer to the city in the period was Keishi. His last choice for the site was the village of Uda, the new city, Heian-kyō, a scaled replica of the then Tang capital Changan, became the seat of Japans imperial court in 794, beginning the Heian period of Japanese history. The city suffered destruction in the Ōnin War of 1467–1477. Battles between samurai factions spilled into the streets, and came to involve the court nobility and religious factions as well, nobles mansions were transformed into fortresses, deep trenches dug throughout the city for defense and as firebreaks, and numerous buildings burned. The city has not seen such widespread destruction since, Hideyoshi also built earthwork walls called odoi encircling the city. Teramachi Street in central Kyoto is a Buddhist temple quarter where Hideyoshi gathered temples in the city, throughout the Edo period, the economy of the city flourished as one of three major cities in Japan, the others being Osaka and Edo. The Hamaguri rebellion of 1864 burnt down 28,000 houses in the city, the modern city of Kyoto was formed on April 1,1889. The construction of Lake Biwa Canal in 1890 is one taken to revive the city. The population of the city exceeded one million in 1932, stimson, Secretary of War in the Roosevelt and Truman administrations, the city was removed from the list of targets and replaced by Nagasaki. The city was spared from conventional bombing as well, although small-scale air raids did result in casualties. As a result, the Imperial City of Kyoto is one of the few Japanese cities that still have an abundance of prewar buildings, however, modernization is continually breaking down the traditional Kyoto in favor of newer architecture, such as the Kyōto Station complex. Kyoto became a city designated by government ordinance on September 1,1956, in 1997, Kyoto hosted the conference that resulted in the protocol on greenhouse gas emissions that bears the citys name. Kyoto is located in a valley, part of the Yamashiro Basin, in the part of the mountainous region known as the Tamba highlands
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Sapporo
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Sapporo is the fourth largest city in Japan by population, and the largest city on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. Located in Ishikari Subprefecture, it is the capital of Hokkaido Prefecture, the city is also home to Sapporo Brewery and the white chocolate biscuits called shiroi koibito. Before its establishment, the occupied by Sapporo was home to a number of indigenous Ainu settlements. In 1866, at the end of the Edo period, construction began on a canal through the area, the settlements name was taken from the Ainu language sat poro pet, and can be translated as dry, great river. As a result, it was determined that a new capital on the Ishikari Plain should be established, the plain itself provided an unusually large expanse of flat, well drained land which is relatively uncommon in the otherwise mountainous geography of Hokkaido. During 1870–1871, Kuroda Kiyotaka, vice-chairman of the Hokkaido Development Commission, as a result, Horace Capron, Secretary of Agriculture under President Ulysses S. Grant, became an oyatoi gaikokujin and was appointed as a special advisor to the commission. Construction began around Odori Park, which remains as a green ribbon of recreational land bisecting the central area of the city. The city closely followed a plan with streets at right-angles to form city blocks. Edwin Dun came to Sapporo to establish sheep and cattle ranches in 1876 and he also demonstrated pig raising and the making of butter, cheese, ham and sausage. He once went back to the US in 1883 but returned to Japan as a secretary of government. William S. Clark, who was the president of the Massachusetts Agricultural College and he taught academic subjects in science and lectured on the Bible as an ethics course, introducing Christian principles to the first entering class of the College. In 1880, the area of Sapporo was renamed as Sapporo-ku. That year the Hōheikan, a hotel and reception facility for visiting officials and it was later moved to Nakajima Park where it remains today. Two years later, with the abolition of the Kaitaku-shi, Hokkaidō was divided into three prefectures, Hakodate, Sapporo, and Nemuro, the name of the urban district in Sapporo remained Sapporo-ku, while the rest of the area in Sapporo-ku was changed to Sapporo-gun. The office building of Sapporo-ku was also located in the urban district, Sapporo, Hakodate, and Nemuro Prefectures were abolished in 1886, and Hokkaidō government office building, an American-neo-baroque-style structure with red bricks, constructed in 1888. The last squad of the Tondenhei, the soldiers pioneering Hokkaido, settled in the place where the area of Tonden in Kita-ku, Sapporo-ku administered surrounding Sapporo-gun until 1899, when the new district system was announced. After that year, Sapporo-ku was away from the control of Sapporo-gun, the ku enforced from 1899 was an autonomy which was a little bigger than towns, and smaller than cities. In Hokkaido at that time, Hakodate-ku and Otaru-ku also existed, in 1907, the Tohoku Imperial University was established in Sendai Miyagi Prefecture, and Sapporo Agricultural College was controlled by the University
21.
Tokyo Metro Ginza Line
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The Tokyo Metro Ginza Line is a subway line in Tokyo, Japan, operated by the Tokyo subway operator Tokyo Metro. The official name is Line 3 Ginza Line and it is 14.3 km long and serves the wards of Shibuya, Minato, Chūō, Chiyoda, and Taitō. The line holds the distinction of being the oldest subway line in Asia, on maps, diagrams and signboards, the line is shown using the color orange, and its stations are given numbers using the letter G. Almost all Ginza Line trains operate on the full length from Asakusa to Shibuya. However, two trains depart in the morning from Toranomon, and some late-night trains from Shibuya are taken out of service at Ueno. Along with the Marunouchi Line, it is self-enclosed and does not have any through services with other railway lines. On weekdays, trains run every two minutes in the peak, every 2 minutes and 15 seconds in the evening peak. The first trains start from Shibuya and Asakusa at 05,01, and the last ones reach Shibuya at 00,37, being the oldest line on the Tokyo Metro, stations are also the closest to the surface—generally no more than one and a half stories underground. The western end of the line emerges to the surface and enters Shibuya Station located on the third-floor of a building that is located in a depression. The Ginza Line was conceived by a businessman named Noritsugu Hayakawa and he founded the Tokyo Underground Railway in 1920, and began construction in 1925. The portion between Ueno and Asakusa was completed on December 30,1927 and publicized as the first underground railway in the Orient, upon its opening, the line was so popular that passengers often had to wait more than two hours to ride a train for a five-minute trip. On January 1,1930, the subway was extended by 1.7 km to temporary Manseibashi Station, the Great Depression slowed down construction, but the line finally reached its originally planned terminus of Shinbashi on June 21,1934. In 1938, the Tōkyō Rapid Railway, a company tied to the predecessor of todays Tokyu Corporation, the two lines began through-service interoperation in 1939 and were formally merged as the Teito Rapid Transit Authority in July 1941. The Ginza Line name was applied in 1953 to distinguish the line from the new Marunouchi Line, in the postwar economic boom, the Ginza Line became increasingly crowded. Automatic train control and Train automatic stopping controller were activated on the Ginza Line on July 31,1993 and this allowed for an increase in the maximum operating speed limit from 55 km/h to 65 km/h, which came into effect on August 2,1993. The newest station on the line, Tameike-Sannō Station, opened in 1997 to provide a connection to the newly built Namboku Line, since April 2012, the Ginza Line uses a fleet of 40 six-car Tokyo Metro 1000 series EMUs which have a maximum speed of 80 km/h. Each car is 16 m long and 2.55 m wide and they are powered by a third rail electrified at 600 V DC. The facility is capable of holding up to 20 6-car formations, major inspections are carried out at Tokyo Metros Nakano depot on the Marunouchi Line, forwarding over a connecting track at Akasaka-Mitsuke
22.
Japanese postal mark
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〒 is the service mark of Japan Post, the postal operator in Japan. It is also used as a Japanese postal code mark, the mark is stylized katakana syllable te, from the word teishin. The mark dates from the pre-World War II era, when literacy was less complete, to indicate a postal code, the mark is written first, and the postal code is written after. For example, one area of Meguro, Tokyo, would have written on any mail. In most keyboard-based Japanese input systems, it can be created by typing yuubin, of the versions shown to the right, the one on the far right is the standard mark used in addressing. The circled yūbin mark in the middle is used on maps to denote post offices. Japan Post#Postal symbol Japanese addressing system Japanese typographic symbols Japanese map symbols Kazakhstani tenge Official Postal Site
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Romanization of Japanese
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The romanization of Japanese is the application of the Latin script to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is referred to in English as rōmaji. There are several different romanization systems, the three main ones are Hepburn romanization, Kunrei-shiki romanization, and Nihon-shiki romanization. Variants of the Hepburn system are the most widely used, Japanese is normally written in a combination of logographic characters borrowed from Chinese and syllabic scripts which also ultimately derive from Chinese characters. It is also used to transliterate Japanese terms in text written in English on topics related to Japan, such as linguistics, literature, history, and culture. Rōmaji is the most common way to input Japanese into word processors and computers, all Japanese who have attended elementary school since World War II have been taught to read and write romanized Japanese. The word rōmaji literally means Roman letters, and in Japan it is often used to refer to the Latin alphabet itself than to any specific form of romanized Japanese. The earliest Japanese romanization system was based on the Portuguese orthography and it was developed around 1548 by a Japanese Catholic named Yajiro. Jesuit priests used the system in a series of printed Catholic books so that missionaries could preach and teach their converts without learning to read Japanese orthography. The most useful of these books for the study of early modern Japanese pronunciation and early attempts at romanization was the Nippo jisho, in general, the early Portuguese system was similar to Nihon-shiki in its treatment of vowels. The latter continued to be printed and read after the suppression of Christianity in Japan, the Hepburn system included representation of some sounds that have since changed. The Nihon-shiki romanization was an outgrowth of that movement, several Japanese texts were published entirely in rōmaji during this period, but it failed to catch on. Today, the use of Nihon-shiki for writing Japanese is advocated by the Oomoto sect, during the Allied occupation of Japan, the government of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers made it official policy to romanize Japanese. However, that failed and a more moderate attempt at Japanese script reform followed. Hepburn romanization generally follows English phonology with Romance vowels and it is an intuitive method of showing Anglophones the pronunciation of a word in Japanese. It was standardized in the USA as American National Standard System for the Romanization of Japanese, Hepburn is the most common romanization system in use today, especially in the English-speaking world. The Revised Hepburn system of romanization uses a macron to indicate long vowels. For example, the name じゅんいちろう, is written with the kana characters ju-n-i-chi-ro-u, without the apostrophe, it would not be possible to distinguish this correct reading from the incorrect ju-ni-chi-ro-u
24.
Japan Post
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Japan Post was a government-owned corporation in Japan that existed from 2003 to 2007, offering postal and package delivery services, banking services, and life insurance. It was the nations largest employer, with over 400,000 employees, one third of all Japanese government employees worked for Japan Post. As of 2005, the President of the company was Masaharu Ikuta, lines Ltd. Japan Post also held about ¥140 trillion of the Japanese national debt in the form of government bonds. On October 1,2007 Japan Post was privatized following a political debate that was settled by the general election of 2005. Following privatization, the Japan Post Group companies operate the postal business, in 2010, privatization was put on hold. The Japanese Ministry of Finance remains the 100% shareholder, the company was born on April 2,2003, as a government-owned corporation, replacing the old Postal Services Agency. Japan Posts formation was part of prime minister Junichiro Koizumis long-term reform plan and was intended to culminate in the full privatization of the postal service. The privatization plan encountered both support and opposition across the Japanese political spectrum, including the two largest parties, the LDP and the DPJ, opponents claimed that the move would result in the closure of post offices and job losses at the nations largest employer. However, proponents contended that privatization would allow for an efficient and flexible use of the companys funds. Proponents also claimed that Japan Post had become a source of corruption. Koizumi called the privatization a major element in his efforts to curb government spending, most opposition parties supported postal privatization in principle, but criticized Koizumis bill. Many considered the bill deeply flawed because it provided for too long a period for full implementation, each of these companies would be privatized in April 2007. In 2005, the house of the Japanese legislature passed the bill to complete this reform by a handful of votes. The bill was defeated in the upper house because of scores of defections from the ruling coalition. Koizumi immediately dissolved the house and scheduled a general election to be held on September 11,2005. He declared the election to be a referendum on postal privatization, Koizumi won this election, gaining the necessary supermajority in the lower house, which he took as a mandate for reform. The final version of the bill to privatize Japan Post in 2007 was passed in October 2005, later in 2010, the privatization was put on hold, and the Japanese Ministry of Finance remains the 100% shareholder. There are two types of facilities in Japan, standard post offices, and the larger distribution centers
25.
Yaesu
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Yaesu is a neighborhood in Chūō, Tokyo, Japan, located north of Ginza, west of Nihonbashi and Kyōbashi, and adjacent to the east side of Tokyo Station. The Yaesu exit, which faces Nihonbashi, is recent and primarily provides access to the Shinkansen platforms, the area was named after the 17th century Dutch adventurer Jan Joosten van Lodensteijn, or simply Jan Joosten. Yaesu Avenue has a monument dedicated to Jan Joosten and his life after his arrival in Japan on De Liefde with his shipmate William Adams, ukiyo-e artist Andō Hiroshige was born in the Yayosu barracks in the Yaesu area in 1797. Tokyo Station and highway bus platforms Yaesu underground shopping promenade, which extends eastward from Tokyo Station down Yaesu Avenue, asahi Mutual Life Insurance Co J. Front Retailing, company that holds the stock in Daimaru and Matsuzakaya department-store chains The Sumitomo Marine & Fire Insurance Co. Yaesu, a manufacturer of equipment, was formerly located here. Kyōbashi Station Nihombashi Station Tokyo Station 35°40′48″N 139°46′11″E
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Grid plan
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The grid plan, grid street plan or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid. In the context of the culture of ancient Rome, the grid method of land measurement was called centuriation. The grid plan dates from antiquity and originated in multiple cultures, by 2600 BC, Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, major cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, were built with blocks divided by a grid of straight streets, running north-south and east-west. Each block was subdivided by small lanes, the cities and monasteries of Gandhara, dating from the 1st millennium BC to the 11th century AD, also had grid-based designs. Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan since 1959, was founded on the grid-plan of the nearby ruined city of Sirkap. A workers village at Giza, Egypt, housed a rotating labor force and was out in blocks of long galleries separated by streets in a formal grid. Many pyramid-cult cities used a common orientation, an axis from the royal palace. Hammurabi was a king of the Babylonian Empire who made Babylon one of the greatest cities in antiquity and he rebuilt Babylon, building and restoring temples, city walls and public buildings, and building canals for irrigation. The streets of Babylon were wide and straight, intersected approximately at right angles, the tradition of grid plans is continuous in China from the 15th century BC onward in the traditional urban planning of various ancient Chinese states. Guidelines put into form in the Kaogongji during the Spring and Autumn period stated. Three gates on each side of the lead into the nine main streets that crisscross the city. Teotihuacan, near modern-day Mexico City, is the largest ancient grid-plan site in the Americas, the citys grid covered eight square miles. Perhaps the most well-known grid system is spread through the colonies of the Roman Empire. The archetypal Roman Grid was introduced to Italy first by the Greeks, with such information transferred by way of trade, although the idea of the grid was present in Hellenic societal and city planning, it was not pervasive prior to the 5th century BC. However, it slowly gained primacy through the work of Hippodamus of Miletus, the concept of a grid as the ideal method of town planning had become widely accepted by the time of Alexander the Great. His conquests were a step in the propagation of the grid plan throughout colonies, some as far-flung as Taxila in Pakistan, that would later be mirrored by the expansion of the Roman Empire. The Greek grid had its streets aligned roughly in relation to the points and generally looked to take advantage of visual cues based on the hilly landscape typical of Greece. The Etruscan people, whose territories in Italy encompassed what would eventually become Rome and it was based on Greek Ionic ideas, and it was here that the main east-west and north-south axes of a town could first be seen in Italy
27.
Kyoto Tower
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Kyoto Tower is an observation tower located in Kyoto, Japan. The steel tower is the tallest structure in Kyoto with its observation deck at 100 metres, the 800-ton tower stands atop a 9-story building, which houses a 3-star hotel and several stores. The entire complex stands opposite Kyoto Station, Kyoto Tower was proposed in the early 1960s, and it was planned to be constructed and completed in time to correspond with the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Construction began in 1963 on the site of Kyotos central post office and was completed near the end of 1964. Unlike many other towers, such as Tokyo Tower that are constructed using metal lattice frames, the structure was then covered with lightweight steel sheets with a thickness of 12–22 mm. The sheets were welded together and painted white. The intended overall effect was for the tower to resemble a Japanese candle, designed by Makoto Tanahashi, a doctor of engineering at Kyoto University, Kyoto Tower was built to withstand the forces of both earthquakes and typhoons. The tower was first opened to the public on December 28,1964, within its first year of opening,1 million people visited the towers observation deck. Throughout the years, the draw as a tourist attraction has diminished. By 1999, observation deck ticket sales dropped to less than 400,000 a year, Kyoto Tower has been the subject of controversy since it was in its planning phase. Public opposition not only stemmed from the towers ¥380 million price tag, the construction regulations in Kyoto that restrict a buildings maximum height increase the sense of proportion between the tower and the low machiya and ferroconcrete apartment blocks below. Today, reaction to Kyoto Tower remains divided, many foreigners who come to Kyoto seeking an elusive sense of old Japan are surprised to see both the modern, glass and steel Kyoto Station and the imposing steel tower directly across the street. Alex Kerr, an expert on Japans fading past, has called the tower a stake through the heart of the city, Kyoto Tower is split into two distinct structures. The primary structure is the spire that begins on the roof of the building below. Tourists may buy tickets and ascend one of the towers nine elevators to visit the 100-metre -high and this area is lined with game machines and free telescopes and provides a 360-degree view of the city. From here, nearly all of Kyoto can be seen, the mountains of Higashiyama and Arashiyama are visible on the east and west sides respectively, while Kitayama can be seen to the north. On a clear day, some buildings in Osaka are visible to the south, the second structure that completely supports the 800-ton tower and gives it its first 30.8 meters of height is a nine-story building. The first four floors of the house several commercial areas, including a souvenir shop, a 100 yen shop, a bookstore
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Ramen
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It consists of Chinese-style wheat noodles served in a meat- or fish-based broth, often flavored with soy sauce or miso, and uses toppings such as sliced pork, dried seaweed, menma, and green onions. Nearly every region in Japan has its own variation of ramen, the origin of ramen is unclear. Some sources say it is of Chinese origin, other sources say it was invented in Japan in the early 20th century. The name ramen is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese lamian, until the 1950s, ramen was called shina soba but today chūka soba or just Ramen are more common, as the word 支那 has acquired a pejorative connotation. By 1900, restaurants serving Chinese cuisine from Canton and Shanghai offered a simple dish of noodles, a few toppings. Many Chinese living in Japan also pulled portable food stalls, selling ramen, by the mid-1900s, these stalls used a type of a musical horn called a charumera to advertise their presence, a practice some vendors still retain via a loudspeaker and a looped recording. By the early Shōwa period, ramen had become a dish when eating out. According to ramen expert Hiroshi Osaki, the first specialized ramen shop opened in Yokohama in 1910, after World War II, cheap flour imported from the United States swept the Japanese market. At the same time, millions of Japanese troops had returned from China, many of these returnees had become familiar with Chinese cuisine and subsequently set up Chinese restaurants across Japan. Eating ramen, while popular, was still an occasion that required going out. In 1958, instant noodles were invented by Momofuku Ando, the Taiwanese-Japanese founder and chairman of Nissin Foods, named the greatest Japanese invention of the 20th century in a Japanese poll, instant ramen allowed anyone to make an approximation to this dish simply by adding boiling water. Beginning in the 1980s, ramen became a Japanese cultural icon and was studied around the world from many perspectives, at the same time, local varieties of ramen were hitting the national market and could even be ordered by their regional names. A ramen museum opened in Yokohama in 1994, a wide variety of ramen exists in Japan, with geographical and vendor-specific differences even in varieties that share the same name. Ramen can be categorized by its two main ingredients, noodles and broth. Making noodles with kansui lends them a yellowish hue as well as a firm texture, eggs may also be substituted for kansui. Ramen comes in various shapes and lengths and it may be thick, thin, or even ribbon-like, as well as straight or wrinkled. Ramen soup is made from stock based on chicken or pork, combined with a variety of ingredients such as kombu, katsuobushi, niboshi, beef bones, shiitake. The resulting combination is generally divided into five categories, shōyu ramen usually has curly noodles rather than straight ones, but this is not always the case
29.
Okurigana
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Okurigana are kana suffixes following kanji stems in Japanese written words. They serve two purposes, to inflect adjectives and verbs, and to force a particular kanji to have a specific meaning and be read a certain way. For example, the verb form 見る inflects to past tense 見た, where 見 is the kanji stem. With very few exceptions, okurigana are used for kunyomi, not for onyomi. When used to inflect an adjective or verb, okurigana can indicate aspect, affirmative or negative meaning, or grammatical politeness, in modern usage, okurigana are almost invariably written with hiragana, katakana were also commonly used in the past. Analogous orthographic conventions find occasional use in English, which, being more familiar, by contrast, in the noun Xmas for Christmas, the character Χ is instead read as Christ. The suffixes serve as phonetic complements to indicate which reading to use, another common example is in ordinal and cardinal numbers –1 is read as one, while 1st is read as fir-st. Adjectives in Japanese use okurigana to indicate aspect and affirmation-negation, with all using the same pattern of suffixes for each case. A simple example uses the character 高 to express the four cases of a Japanese adjective. The root meaning of the word is expressed via the kanji, both individual kanji and multi-kanji words may have multiple readings, and okurigana are used in both cases. Note the okurigana are not considered part of the reading, grammatically the verb is kudasa-ru, compare with furigana, which, specify the complete reading, appear outside the line of the text, and which are omitted if understood. Another example includes a common verb with different meanings based on the okurigana, example, ちゃんと話す方がいい。, meaning Its better if you speak correctly. 話し noun form of the verb hanasu, to speak, example, 話し言葉と書き言葉, meaning spoken words and written words. 話 noun, meaning a story or a talk, example, 話はいかが？, meaning How about a story. Okurigana are not always sufficient to specify the reading, in such cases the reading must be deduced from context or via furigana. Ambiguity may be introduced in inflection – even if okurigana specify the reading in the form of a verb. Examples include nouns such as 気配り kikubari care, consideration versus 気配 kehai indication, hint, sign, Note that in this later case, the native verb and the borrowed Chinese word with the same kanji have approximately the same meaning, but are pronounced differently. For a few categories of words, okurigana correspond to historical suffixes which are no distinct or productive, and the suffix is now fused to the word
30.
Sapporo JR Tower
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Sapporo JR Tower is a skyscraper, shopping mall and office complex in Sapporo, Hokkaidō, Japan. The Tower is located above JR Sapporo Station South entrance, and it also houses the parking lot, observation deck, and heliport. Sapporo JR Tower was officially opened on March 6,2003 by the Sapporo-Eki Minamiguchi Kaihatsu Co. Ltd. which was renamed to the Sapporo-Eki Sogo Kaihatsu Co. Ltd. in 2005. In the planning stage step, the name of building complex was Sapporo-Eki Minamiguchi Sougou Kaihatsu Building, in November 2000, the name was formally changed to the JR Tower. The completion ceremony was held in February 2003, and JR Tower opened to the public on March 6,2003. On October 1,2005, the Sapporo-Eki Minamiguchi Kaihatsu Co. Ltd. a company which managed JR Tower, JR Tower Square Card, a credit card with loyalty program, has issued since March 2006. Sapporo JR Tower is separated in three sections, West, Center, and East, in the West section, Daimaru Sapporo branch store, a nine-storey building, is located. There are four floors in the basement, and three of them are used as the parking lot, eki-Sta, a television studio, is located in the ground floor of the Center section. The East section has the 38-storey Tower building, from the 22nd floor to the 36th floor are used as hotel rooms of the JR Tower Hotel Nikko Sapporo, and at the 38th floor, the Tower Three Eight, an observation deck, is located. Elevators which take directly to the 38th floor are served at 6th floor, in the male bathroom in the northeast corner of the 38th floor, urinals are lined adjacent to large windows so that people can survey the view of entire Sapporo City while they are urinating. The underpass of the East section connects to the Sapporo ESTA, Sapporo JR Tower Official Website JR Tower Hotel Nikko Sapporo Homepage Tower Three Eight Daily Yomiuri Online article, JR SAPPORO STATION Emporis. com JR Tower 43°04′05″N 141°21′09″E
31.
Hakodate Main Line
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The Hakodate Main Line is a railway line connecting the cities of Hakodate and Asahikawa via Sapporo in Hokkaido, Japan. It is one of the lines operated by the Hokkaido Railway Company. The Sawara line, a 35 km loop line from Onuma to Mori opened in 1945, is included as part of the Hakodate Main Line, the Sapporo—Minami-Otaru section was the first railway line opened in Hokkaido. Now that Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto is the connection between the Hokkaido Shinkansen and zairaisen services on the Hakodate Main Line, these services have been re-routed accordingly. A, Rapid Airport B, Rapid Niseko Liner C, Semi-Rapid Ishikari Liner D, Semi-Rapid Ishikari Liner Trains stop at stations marked +, skip at stations marked -. The line was sold to the Hokkaido Coal Co in 1889, which extended the line 35 km from Iwamizawa to Sunagawa in 1891, and a further 61 km to Asahikawa in 1898. The Japanese Government built the 224 km Hakodate - Shikaribetsu section, opened in 1902, with the remaining 28 km section to Otaru opening the following year. In 1905 a 1.6 km line was built from Otaru - Minami-Otaru to connect the Hokkaido Coal Co owned line to the Hakodate line, and the Government nationalised the Hokkaido Coal Co in 1906. Doubling of the line between Minami-Otaru and Iwamizawa opened 1909-11, and was extended to Sunagawa 1924-26, to Takikawa in 1956, the Otaru - Minami-Otaru section was duplicated in 1965. The line from Hakodate was duplicated for 8 km to Kikyo 1941-44, doubling of the 41 km section between Nodaoi and Oshamambe was undertaken in sections between 1965 and 1984, with the 13 km Mori - Ishikura section doubled between 1974 and 1979. Although the Sawara Line provides a route from Onuma - Mori, it is operated as a local line, with all express passenger. The Otaru - Sapporo - Takikawa section was electrified in 1968, the 3 km Hakodate - Goryokaku section was electrified in conjunction with the Seikan Tunnel project in 1988. The 15 km Goryokaku - Oshima-Ono section was electrified in conjunction with the opening of the Hokkaido Shinkansen, Goryokaku station - the uncompleted Toi line junctioned here, proposed to service a naval base to protect the Tsugaru Strait. Construction commenced in 1937, and the 29 km line was advanced when works were suspended in 1943 due to a shortage of materials. The Seikan Tunnel was originally proposed to utilised the roadbed of the Toi line until the route was altered in 1968 to that subsequently constructed. This occurred in 1948 when the last 11 km of the line from Choshiguchi was reopened by the local government, - A line was built from Mori 9.4 km south to Sunahara in 1928. The first 3.1 km of line was rebuilt as part of the Sawara line. Nakanosawa station - The 48 km line to Setana opened in 1929/32, kuromatsunai station - The local government built the line to the port of Suttsu in 1920
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Toyohira River
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The Toyohira River is a river in Hokkaidō prefecture, Japan. It is 72.5 km in length and has area of 959 km². It is a tributary of the Ishikari River and it supplies water to Sapporo city, the capital of Hokkaidō built on the alluvial fan formed by the river. Jōzankei is an attraction with onsen along the upper Toyohira. From the mountain Oizaridake, the Toyohira River flows northwards into Lake Jōzan, the Hōheikyō Dam created the lake. The river runs through the gorge, after exiting the gorge it is joined by several more rivers before turning East. Two smaller dams block the course of the Toyohira as it moves into the suburbs of Sapporo, the river flows north and east through the middle of the Toyohira Ward of Sapporo. As it leaves the area it forms the border between Sapporo and Ebetsu before emptying into the Ishikari River. The Ainu knew this river as Sapporo Pet, Toyopira was originally the name of a crossing point of the Sapporo River. Until the 19th century, the course of the Sapporo River had been the same as the Fushiko River of today. After a flood, the made a new course to the east. The Ainu called the remains of this old lower course of the Sapporo River Fushiko Sapporo or Old Sapporo, when the Japanese colonized the area, they used Ainu place names. They named the new city after the river Sapporo and named the Sapporo River after the crossing point Toyohira. The old lower course of the Fushiko Sapporo was named Fushiko River, the Toyohira Bridge was built at the crossing point named Toyopira by the Ainu
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Makomanai Park
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Makomanai Park is a city park in Minami-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan. It is home to such as Makomanai Open Stadium, Makomanai Ice Arena. It also contains a gymnasium, restaurant and a shop. The area where the park is now located was the site of the Sapporo 1972 Winter Olympic Games. The current Makomanai Park was originally the site of a Hokkaido dairy, for the 1972 Winter Olympics it was designated as the main area for the Games, where most facilities, including the main stadium, were to be built. After the Olympics, construction of the Park began and in 1975 it was opened to the public. Located in the part of the city, along the Toyohira riverside, in the confluence with the Makomanai River. The park includes over 10 km of walking paths and it is used from spring to autumn as a walk or jogging course and in winter as a cross-country skiing path. The Makomanai Open Stadium, sited at the center of the park, the stadium hosted the Olympics Opening ceremony and the speed skating events. It is used today for speed skating competitions in the winter, the park also contains the Makomanai Ice Arena, which opened on 1972. The arena opened in time to host some of the Winter Olympics figure skating competitions, today, it is utilized as a concert venue and ice skating facility. The Sapporo Salmon Museum, opened in 1984 and it is located at the northwestern end of the park, and explains the fish, including its life history and its importance for the region. In the outdoor observation channel, visitors can watch salmon spawning in autumn, the indoor aquarium exhibits rainbow trout, landlocked salmon and Sakhalin taimen species. In 1972, the hosted the Biathlon, Cross-country skiing. Namboku Line,20 minutes walking distance from Makomanai Station, Park at Hokkaido Pref. website Park website
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Ishikawa Prefecture
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Ishikawa Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region on Honshū island. Ishikawa was formed in 1872 from the merger of Kaga Province, Ishikawa is on the Sea of Japan coast. The prefecture also has some islands, including Notojima, Mitsukejima, Hegurajima, Ishikawa Prefecture has an area of 4,185 km² and as of April 1,2011 it has a population of 1,166,643 persons. The tea ceremony was introduced in 1666 when Maeda Toshitsune invited Senbiki Soshitsu of Urasenke to Kanazawa, kutani ware is a bright colored glaze like Chinese porcelain. Ohi teaware is a pottery with a unique to Kanazawa. Nyotaimori or naked sushi is said to have originated in Ishikawa Prefecture, Kaga silk is made with complicated silk print technique with an intentional rough look. Kanazawa lacquerware is high quality lacquerware traditionally decorated with gold dust, Kanazawa gold leaf is produced with a technique of beating gold into wafer-thin sheets. Kaga mizuhiki is ribbon-like decoration made from glued Japanese paper, Kaga inlay crafts are made with a combination of thin flat and thread metal inlays. Gojinjo Daiko is a Japanese drum, a Wajima city cultural heritage as well as an Ishikawa Prefecture intangible cultural heritage, abare Festival is reputed the most fierce festivals of Noto, Ishikawa. The most popular destination in Ishikawa is Kanazawa, tourists can get to Ishikawa by plane via either the Komatsu or Noto airports. Hideki Matsui, a current player for the New York Yankees, was born and raised in Neagari Town and he gained fame as a baseball player while attending high school in Kanazawa. Daisuke Nakata, a trampolinist who has competed in the Olympics in the past, is from Ishikawa, Ishikawa hosts a number of well-known universities. Hokuriku University—a small liberal arts university with a School of Pharmacy and a School of Future Learning that gives instruction in Business, Economics, tanimoto is currently one of two governors who are in their sixth term nationwide, the other being Masaru Hashimoto of Ibaraki. As of February 26,2014, the LDP prefectural assembly caucus has 25 members, in the National Diet, Ishikawa is represented by three directly elected members of the House of Representatives and two of the House of Councillors. ISBN 978-0-674-01753-5, OCLC58053128 Ishikawa travel guide from Wikivoyage Official website Cultural assets of Ishikawa
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Kanazawa
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Kanazawa is the capital city of Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. It has a population of 462,478 and an area of 467.77 km². The name Kanazawa, which means marsh of gold, is said to derive from the legend of the peasant Imohori Togoro. The well in the grounds of Kenrokuen known as Kinjo Reitaku was recreated by the Maeda lords to acknowledge these roots, the area where Kanazawa is was originally known as Ishiura, and the Ishiura Shrine near Kenrokuen is a remnant of this period. The centre of the town was the castle. While many castle towns in Japan had the castle placed to one side of the city, during the fifteenth century, the powers of the central Shoguns in Kyoto was waning, and their regional governors were assuming even greater powers, carving out their own little fiefs. In Kaga, the priest Rennyo, of the Jodo Shinshu sect, rennyos brand of Buddhism quickly spread among the samurai and peasants. The followers of Rennyo were only loosely under the control of the central Honganji in Kyoto, and were known as the Ikko sect, the Single-Minded sect. For the next hundred years, Kaga was ruled by the Ikko peasants and their principle stronghold was the Basilica of Kanazawa Gobo, on the tip of the Kodatsuno Ridge. Backed by high hills and flanked on two sides by rivers, it was a fortress, and the eventual home of the Maeda lords. Many of these districts have survived to the present day, in name if nothing else, in the year 1580, a general under Oda Nobunaga named Sakuma Morimasa attacked the Peasants Kingdom, and succeeded in overthrowing Kanazawa Gobo. Granted an income of 50,000 koku from Nobunaga, Sakuma proceeded to recreate the town as a military base, Maeda Toshiie was born in 1537, in the village of Arako in the Owari Province, the son of Maeda Toshiharu, the lord of Arako Castle. In the same year, in the province, Toyotomi Hideyoshi was born. And five years later in neighbouring Mikawa Province, Tokugawa Ieyasu was born and these men would go on to become some of the most powerful lords of the Warring States era. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu were primarily responsible for the reunification of Japan after 150 years of civil war, after his father died in 1569, Toshiie found himself the head of the Maeda Clan, and the lord of Arako Castle with its fairly minor 2450 kan income. He was known as a warrior, in 1551, the fifteen-year-old Toshiie won his first victory at the Battle of Kayazu. He took his first head in battle, and in another battle in 1556 he defeated a man known for his ferocity. Toshiies income was tripled, and due to his courage he was given a position directly serving Nobunaga
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Nanao, Ishikawa
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Nanao is a city located in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. As of March 1,2010, the city has an population of 58,204. The total area is 318.02 km², Nanao is the fifth largest city by population in Ishikawa, behind Kanazawa, Hakusan, Komatsu, and Kaga. Nanao is situated in the middle of the Noto Peninsula and was the ancient capital of Noto Province and it has several popular onsen such as Wakura Onsen, a resort town which is regarded as one of the best onsen in Japan. On March 25,2007, the 2007 Noto earthquake shook Nanao, an Imperial decree in July 1899 established Nanawo as an open port for trading with the United States and the United Kingdom. The city of Nanao was founded on July 20,1939, the name Nanao literally means Seven Tails and is said to be named for the seven mountain ridges surrounding Nanao that are visible when viewed from Joyama, site of the citys historical castle ruins. These ridges are called Kikuo, Kameo, Matsuo, Toranoo, Takeo, Umeo, Nanao has a humid subtropical climate with hot, wet summers and cool, snowy winters. On October 1,2004, Nanao expanded due to the merger of the old Nanao-shi with the towns of Nakajima, Notojima and Tatsuruhama
