The Ryukyu Islands, which include Okinawa, are a chain to the south of Kyushu. The country’s five main islands, from north to south, are Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu and Okinawa. On March 11, 2011, Japan suffered the Tōhoku earthquake—the largest by magnitude in its recorded history—which, along with the ensuing tsunami, triggered the Fukushima nuclear accident. The war cost Japan millions of lives and many of its conquered territories, including de jure parts of Japan such as Korea, Taiwan, Karafuto, and the Kurils.
The earliest works of Japanese literature include the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki chronicles and the Man’yōshū poetry anthology, all from the 8th century and written in Chinese characters. Japan has the lowest rate of heart disease in the OECD, and the lowest level of dementia among developed countries. Since 1981, the principal cause of death in Japan is cancer, which accounted for 27% of the total deaths in 2018—followed by cardiovascular diseases, which led to 15% of the deaths.
Kumi-daiko (ensemble drumming) was developed in post-war Japan and became very popular in North America. The popular folk music, with the guitar-like shamisen, dates from the 16th century. The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is considered the oldest extant Japanese narrative.
The Jinshin War of 672, a bloody conflict between Prince Ōama and his nephew Prince Ōtomo, became a major catalyst for further administrative reforms. The true aim of the reforms was to bring about greater centralization and to enhance the power of the imperial court, which was also based on the governmental structure of China. It nationalized all land in Japan, to be distributed equally among cultivators, and ordered the compilation of a household registry as the basis for a new system of taxation.
Law enforcement
It is thought to be one of the earliest predators, catching small prey with its nematocysts as modern cnidarians do. The apparent suddenness of the event may however be an artefact of the fossil record, rather than showing that all these animals appeared simultaneously. The first body fossils of animals appear in the Ediacaran, represented by forms such as Charnia and Spriggina.
- Japan is widely considered to be a great power due to its economic power and political, cultural, and military influence.
- Japan has close economic and military relations with the United States, with which it maintains a security alliance.
- Japan ranked seventh in the world in tonnage of fish caught and captured 3,167,610 metric tons of fish in 2016, down from an annual average of 4,000,000 tons over the previous decade.
- Most appear to belong to two major lineages, the protostomes and the deuterostomes.
- Animals such as the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster serve a major role in science as experimental models.
- People have used hunting dogs to help chase down and retrieve animals, and birds of prey to catch birds and mammals, while tethered cormorants have been used to catch fish.
- Once considered the strongest in the world, the Japanese consumer electronics industry is in a state of decline as regional competition arises in neighboring East Asian countries such as South Korea and China.
Life styles
Japan is the second highest-ranked Asian country in the 2025 Global Peace Index. Japan has close economic and military relations with the United States, with which it maintains a security alliance. Statutory law originates in the legislature, and the constitution requires that the emperor promulgate legislation passed by the Diet without giving him the power to oppose legislation.
Popular Japanese beverages include sake, a brewed rice beverage that typically contains 14–17% alcohol and is made by multiple fermentation of rice. Japanese cuisine offers a vast array of regional specialties that use traditional recipes and local ingredients. Beginning in 2000, Japan implemented the Happy Monday System, which moved a number of national holidays to Monday in order to obtain a long weekend. Public holidays in Japan are regulated by the Public Holiday Law (国民の祝日に関する法律, Kokumin no Shukujitsu ni Kansuru Hōritsu) of 1948.
Modern era
Once considered the strongest in the world, the Japanese consumer electronics industry is in a state of decline as regional competition arises in neighboring East Asian countries such as South Korea and China. The country’s manufacturing output is the third highest in the world as of 2023update. Japan maintains one of the world’s largest fishing fleets and accounts for nearly 15% of the global catch, prompting critiques that Japan’s fishing is leading to depletion in fish stocks such as tuna. The Japanese agricultural sector accounts for about 1.2% of the country’s total GDP as of 2018update.
- English has taken a major role in Japan as a business and international link language, and is a compulsory subject at the junior and senior high school levels.
- Some medicines such as the cancer drug trabectedin are based on toxins or other molecules of animal origin.
- Japanese cuisine offers a vast array of regional specialties that use traditional recipes and local ingredients.
- Between the 4th and 6th centuries, its kingdoms were united under an emperor in Nara and later in Heian-kyō.
- Nippon, the original Sino-Japanese reading of the characters, is favored for official uses, including on Japanese banknotes and postage stamps.
- The digestive chamber has two openings, a mouth and an anus, and in the Nephrozoa there is an internal body cavity, a coelom or pseudocoelom.
EX Extinct EW Extinct in the Wild CR Critically Endangered EN Endangered VU Vulnerable NT Near Threatened LC Least Concern Oak Toad Oarfish Ocean Perch Ocean Pout Ocean Whitefish Oceanic Whitetip Shark Ocellated Turkey Ocelot Octopus Oenpelli python Oilfish Okapi Old English Sheepdog Old House Borer Oleander Hawk Moth Olingo Olive Baboon Olive python Olive Sea Snake Olm Olympic Marmot Onagadori Chicken Onager Opabinia Opah Opaleye (Rudderfish) Opossum Oranda Goldfish Orange Baboon Tarantula Orange Dream Ball Python Orange Roughy Orange Spider Orange Tanager (Orange-Headed Tanager) Orange-Crowned Warbler Orangutan Orb Weaver Orchard Oriole Orchid Dottyback Oregon Spotted Frog Ori-Pei Oribi Oriental Cockroach Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher Orinoco Crocodile Ornate Bichir Ornate Black-Tailed Rattlesnake Ornate Box Turtle Ornithocheirus Ornithomimus Ortolan Bunting Oscar Fish Osprey Ostracod Ostrich Otter Otterhound Ovenbird Oviraptor Owl Owl Butterfly Owlfly (Ascalaphidae) Ox Oxpecker Oyster Oyster Toadfish Ozark Bass Major animal paintings include Albrecht Dürer’s 1515 The Rhinoceros, and George Stubbs’s c. Some medicines such as the cancer drug trabectedin are based on toxins or other molecules of animal origin.
For instance, around 25,000–27,000 species of nematodes have been described, while published estimates of the total number of nematode species include 10,000–20,000; 500,000; 10 million; and 100 million. The following table lists estimated numbers of described extant species for the major animal phyla, along with their principal habitats (terrestrial, fresh water, and marine), and free-living or parasitic ways of life. The blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) is the largest animal that has ever lived, weighing up to 190 tonnes and measuring up to 33.6 metres (110 ft) long. Vertebrates such as the lobe-finned fish Tiktaalik started to move basswin on to land in the late Devonian, about 375 million years ago. Some benthic animals living close to hydrothermal vents and cold seeps on the dark sea floor consume organic matter produced through chemosynthesis (via oxidising inorganic compounds such as hydrogen sulfide) by archaea and bacteria.