Japan (Japanese: 日本, Nippon or Nihon,[nb 1] and
formally 日本国, Nihonkoku)[nb 2] is an island country in East Asia. It
is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean and is bordered on the west
by the Sea of Japan, extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north
toward the East China Sea, Philippine Sea, and Taiwan in the south.
Japan is a part of the Ring of Fire, and spans an archipelago of 6852
islands covering 377,975 square kilometers (145,937 sq mi); the five
main islands are Hokkaido, Honshu (the "mainland"), Shikoku, Kyushu,
and Okinawa. Tokyo is the nation's capital and largest city, followed
by Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kobe, and Kyoto. Japan is
the eleventh most populous country in the world, as well as one of
the most densely populated and urbanized. About three-fourths of the
country's terrain is mountainous, concentrating its population of 124.8
million on narrow coastal plains. Japan is divided into 47
administrative prefectures and eight traditional regions. The Greater
Tokyo Area is the most populous metropolitan area in the world, with
more than 37.2 million residents.