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JAPAN

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The geography of Japan

Japan is an island country in the Pacific Ocean. It consists of an archipelago extending approximately from northeast to southwest. It lies off the east coast of the Asian continent. The total land area is about 400,000 square kilometers, only slightly larger than that of Finland or Italy and about the same size as the US State of Montana. The four major islands of Japan are Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu. There are hundreds of small islands along the coasts.

The Japanese islands are part of a great sunken mountain range along the shores of the northern Islands, and the Kuril Islands also are part of this range. So are the Philippine and the Pyukyu islands to the south.

Six out of seven square miles of the surface of Japan are mountainous. There are few broad plains on any of the islands. The Kanto plain starts at the head of Tokyo Bay and extends to about the middle of Honshu. The great cities of Osaka, Kobe, and Kyoto lie on the smaller Nobi Plain. But most of Japan slopes up from the sea to hills, plateaus, and high peaks.

The Sea of Japan separates Hokkaido and Honshu islands from northeastern Asia. The Korean Strait runs between Japan and Korea.

There are more than 500 volcanoes in Japan; many of them have been active within last 500 years. Earthquakes and eruptions are a constant danger. To guard against it, houses are made of light materials, so that if they fall or are destroyed, it will be less dangerous and no great loss will be incurred. This precaution, however, makes houses make liable to catch fire. In 1923 the capital city of Tokyo and its port of Yokohama were almost completely destroyed by an earthquake, and besides, the enormous loss of life (with) over a million people were rendered homeless.

The beautiful mountains have been an inspiration for Japanese painters and poets. Mount Fuji is the highest and best known Japanese mountain. The Japanese call it Fujiyama ("yama" means "mountain" in Japanese). Fuji is an inactive, extinct volcano.

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There are no long rivers in Japan. The Ishikari in Hokkaido, is the longest one. Japan has many lakes. Some lie in the craters of dead volcanoes, and the others in mountain valleys. The largest lake is Biwa, northeast of Kyoto in central Honshu.

Japan has a sea of its own, the inland sea, lying between Honshu in the north and Kyushu and Shikoku in the south. It has always been an important waterway for the Japanese.

Climate

The climate in Japan is influenced by the ocean currents which flow near the islands and is also influenced by strong winds that blow over them. Two great ocean currents pass (by) the Japanese coast. The Japan Current starts north of the Philippines and flows northward along the southern and eastern coast of Japan.

It is mostly a warm current that makes southern Japan much warmer than places in the same latitude on the mainland of Asia. In the East of Japan, the Japan Current meets the Kuril Current, which flows south from the cold waters of the Sea of Okhotsk and the Bering Sea.

The winds of Japan follow the pattern of the Asiatic monsoon, a constant seasonal wind. Japan is also in the path of typhoons, great windstorms that start in the west-central Pacific.

Temperatures in Japan are generally warmer in the south than in the north, and the transitional seasons of spring and fall are shorter in the north.

At Asahikawa, in central Hokkaido, the mean temperature in January, the coldest month, is 16oF(-9o), and the mean temperature in August, the hottest month, is 70oF (21oC) at Tokyo, the mean temperature for January is 39oF (4o), the mean for August 81oF (27o), and the annual average 59oF (15oC). The warmest temperatures occur on Kyushu and the southern islands: at Kagoshima, the mean temperature for January is 45oF (17oC), the mean for August is 81oF (27oC) and the average is 63oF (17oC)

Vocabulary

plain – равнина

range – хребет, горная цепь earthquake – землетрясение

to extend – тянуться, пробираться eruption – извержение

destroy – разрушать

incur – нести убытки (вовлекать) precaution – предостережение inspiration – вдохновение