Compared with China, Japan is a small country. The area of Japan is about 378,000 square kilometers, which is roughly the size of Yunnan Province, China. Moreover, in the agricultural era, Japan was not too rich because 75% of its land area belongs to mountainous and hilly areas and there are few plains. In the feudal agricultural era, these precious plain areas naturally belong to the essence areas.
So what plains are there in Japan? The most famous one is Kanto Plain , which is the largest plain in Japan. Its scope includes the six prefectures in Kanto (excluding the hills of Fangzhong Peninsula), with a total area of about 17,000 square kilometers. However, in Japan, the Kanto region has not made its fortune for a long time, mainly because Japanese civilization is mainly spread from the southwest to the northeast. Therefore, the Kanto area was originally the easternmost border area of Yamato, but in modern times it undoubtedly became the center of Japan.
It was not until the end of the 12th century to the mid-14th century that the Kanto area became the political center of the Kamakura Shogunate. At the end of the 15th century, the first generation of the Hojo clan became the master of Hojo clan, laying the foundation for its clan's overlords in the Warring States Period. At the end of the 16th century, after the Toyotomi launched the Odawara conquest, he changed the Tokugawa clan , which originally occupied the Mikawa Kingdom, to this place. Tokugawa Ieyasu developed the Edo area during this period of stubborn period and became the political center of the Edo shogunate in the future.
Now, the Kanto region has more than 43 million people, more than one-third of that in Japan. The Tokyo metropolitan area (capital area), with one capital and three prefectures as the core, has a population of more than 37 million, making it the world's largest metropolitan area.
Where is the economy behind in addition to the Kanto Plain? That is the Kinki Plain (also known as the Osaka Plain) in Kansai area. It covers an area of about 1,700 square kilometers and is located in the central part of Osaka Prefecture and southeast of Hyogo Prefecture. It has been the center of Japan's civilization for a long time. It is now the location of the Hanshin Industrial Zone. The Keihanshin (Kyoto, Osaka , Kobe) metropolitan area is Japan's second largest metropolitan area with a population of more than 19 million.
In addition, there is another very famous one. It covers an area of about 1,800 square kilometers. The nylon plain is located in the northwest of Aichi Prefecture and the south of Gifu Prefecture. Now there is the third largest metropolitan area in Japan, and the Nakakyo (located between Tokyo and Kyoto) metropolitan area centered on Nagoya.
Kanto, Kinki, and Oo, these are the three "element areas" plains of Japan. It is now the location of Japan's three metropolitan areas (Tokyo, Keihanshin, Nakakyo). In ancient times, here were the core of the power of Tokugawa Ieyasu, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Oda Nobunaga .
However, Japan does not have only these three plains. In fact, Japan's second largest plain is not the Kinki Plain or the Ooe Plain, but the Ishikari Plain, which has an area of 4,000 square kilometers!
But there was really no sense of existence in ancient Japan because it was in Hokkaido . Hokkaido was a wilderness in ancient Japan. Japan did not officially incorporate it into the territory and develop it until after the Meiji Restoration. Moreover, Hokkaido is indeed too north and the climate is too cold. However, now the Ishikari Plain has also developed, agriculture is very developed, and there is also Sapporo, the fourth largest city in Japan.
Then there is Sendai plain, which also has 2,070 square kilometers, which is larger than the Kinki Plain and the Okuo Plain, but its importance is far less than these two. The reason is that it is close to the northeast and has a bitter and cold climate. In ancient Japan, it was a relatively backward economic place, but in the Northeast region, it is also an elite area, the largest city in Northeast Japan. Mr. Lu Xun studied abroad and Sendai was located here.
. In Kyushu Island , there is also a not-small Zhu Zi Plain, located in the south of Fukuoka Prefecture and Saga Prefecture, with an area of about 1,200 square kilometers. This can be said to be the first place where Japanese civilization first emerged. It is generally believed that the ancient Japanese civilization, the Evil Ma Tai Kingdom, is here. Now there are industrial cities such as Kurume , Omuta, and Saga .
and Echigo Plain, with an area of 2,000 square kilometers, which is not small in theory. However, it was not very rich in ancient times because it was surrounded by mountains. It is in the central and northern part of Niigata Prefecture . This place is the front line for the central government of Japan to enter and exit the northeast. After the Meiji Restoration, Japan's government orders were unified, and it was a prosperous place here for a while. Until the 1890s, Niigata Prefecture was the largest population prefecture in Japan and is now the most important grain production base in Japan. The Echigo Plain now lives in 5 million people, and the main cities include Niigata and Nagaoka.
In addition, there are some small plains in Japan, but this is also very precious in Japan. Almost every small plain has this city that is relatively large in Japan. For example, the Kumamoto Plain, the second largest plain on Kyushu Island, with an area of about 775 square kilometers, and the famous Kumamoto City ; there is also the third largest Fukuoka Plain in Kyushu, whose main scope includes Fukuoka City , Kasuga City, Ono City, and Dazaifu City, which are economically developed places.
and the " Shikoku Island " with the lowest presence in Japan. The largest plain here is the Sanqi Plain, which is the general term for the Okawa Plain (93 km²), Takamatsu Plain (181 63 km²), Kyuki Plain (126.77 km²), and Mito Plain (155.99 km²). Even in Japan, these are small plains, but this is indeed the essence of Shikoku Island. There is no doubt that the most economically developed place on Shikoku Island (most areas of Kagawa Prefecture) is located in this plain.
In addition, the Boma Plain (located in cities such as Himeji City, Kafugawa City and Takasago City), the Toyama Plain ( Toyama City ) and others also have a certain status in Japan. These plains in Japan are only a little more than 30,000 square kilometers, which is indeed too small compared to China. China alone has three large plains (Northeast Plain, North China Plain, and Middle and Lower Yangtze River Plain) combined, and several other small plains (such as the Chengdu Plain, Guanzhong Plain, Pearl River Delta, Chaoshan Plain, Hetao Plain, and Western Taiwan Plain).
Author: Yunfan
