Let's jump on Japan physical now for just a little bit. Of course Japan is an island nation, an island nation state to be exact, on the far eastern fringe of the Asian continent. So far east in fact, that the British of course referred to it as the Far East. It's so far east that the Japanese are some of the first people to see the rising sun every day as a new day dawns on planet Earth. Now, to be technically exact there are parts of Russia which are a little further east, but we're willing forget and forego that for just a second because of course Japan refers to themselves as the Land of the Rising Sun for good reason. It is evidenced in the symbology of their flags. The Japanese flag a big white field with a red Sun middle, or the Japanese naval ensign with a red Sun in the middle streaming rays across. Now, this island state on the far eastern fringe of Asia is is comprised of four main islands and perhaps 1000, 2000, 3000 smaller islands of no great concern to us right this second. However the four, I do want you to know by name. Going from north to south, Hokkaido, Honshu, the main major island of Japan, Shikoku, and Kyushu, the southernmost major island of Japan. However, there are a couple of other chains of significant note. Further south of Kyushu is the Ryukyu Islands, which span hundreds of miles further south, and north of Hokkaido are the Kuril Islands. I specifically named them because they are of some note. The Kuril Islands are still disputed between Russia and Japan as to who exactly owns and controls them. They haven't signed a treaty yet on that stuff. And of greater importance in the Ryukyu Islands down south sits a particular island of note to the United States named Okinawa. Yeah, you've heard of that. Okinawa where tens of thousands of US military service people are located in several major US bases. It's of strategic significance to Japan more so to the United States. Zoom in to that map where Okinawa exactly is about halfway between Japan, a US ally, Taiwan, another US ally, and China, perhaps not so much US ally. So Okinawa of great significance to the US in times past and still today. Now the other thing I want you to consider about Japan's island status is that even though it's not far from the Asian mainland, not far from Korea, it is kind of separate and distinct. It has been historically, it still is now. It's separate. It's different. It's a little, it's just not exactly Asia. Very much like the UK is on the other side of the Eurasian continent. Of course the UK is European, but they're kind of a little separate, a little standoffish, a little different. Japan is the same way on the other side to Asia. Speaking of size of Japan, the four main islands we're talking about here roughly equivalent to the state of California. However, unlike California Japan has four times as many people as California's holding. Try to imagine this. Pushing every American west of the Mississippi and jamming them into California. 127 million in Japanese folks hanging out on those four main islands. Serious population density. Now let's shift to climate. And instead of comparing Japan to California climate, it would be much better for us to superimpose Japan on the eastern side of the United States. Dig this map. The star represents Washington DC, the nation's capital. Now let's superimpose Japan keeping the latitude constant. So in this map, latitude of Japan and the eastern seaboard of the United States is exactly the same. And Tokyo is the red star lit up on the Japanese map. Now, if you know anything about the eastern seaboard of the United States, what happens should you go north of Washington DC to say upstate New York? It gets a hell of a lot colder. It snows a lot up there. And what happens when you south to places like Georgia, to the panhandle of Florida? It gets a lot warmer. Longer, hotter summers. And now you know exactly what's going on in Japan. Same deal different continent. As you progress north of Tokyo, the winters get more severe and lots of snow falls on Hokkaido, the northernmost island. As you progress south from Tokyo, it gets a heck of a lot warmer, hotter even. And if you were to go through the Ryukyu Islands even further south, you'd be getting into some very tropical areas. So now you understand Japanese climate north to south just as it is in the eastern side of the United States of America. And they have similar meteorological phenomena as well, meaning we have seasonal shifts and seasonal changes in the United States, in the eastern United States, same seasons, winter, spring, summer, fall. And as hurricane season approaches the eastern part of the United States, they're having typhoon season in the Pacific, particularly in Japan. Same atmospheric phenomena, different names, and different locations. The Atlantic hurricanes are the equivalent Pacific typhoons. And southern Japan regularly gets hit by typhoons in the same time of year. Now let's tackle terrain. Unlike the eastern seaboard of the United States, Japan is extremely mountainous from stem to stern, from Hokkaido all the way through the riyuku Islands. About 70 to 75 percent of Japan is mountainous, mountain covered, and these are exceptionally tough mountain ranges. They're rugged and they top off anywhere from nine to ten to twelve thousand feet or the high points. And in fact, the highest point in Japan, Mount Fuji, you've heard of Fujisan, just outside Tokyo at 12,388 feet above sea level. So about 70-75 percent of Japan is mountainous tough terrain and it's about the same forest cover. So this is a place which is very natural in its state. Mountains and forest cover most of this area. Why is Japan so mountainous by the way? Because it's very creation is all about mountain building episodes. If you heard the theory of plate tectonics, check out this map, the plate tectonics of planet Earth, and this is a theory, a very good theory, explains a lot of what's going on planet Earth, that the entire Earth's crust is divided up into plates of which the continents and the oceans sit on top of, and these plates are moving around and adjusting and bumping into each other in some places moving away and some places converging and smashing into each other. It helps explain a lot of what's going on planet Earth in terms of natural disasters, but also a lot of historical and biological facts. In Japan's case, sits in a particular place where Plates are coming together. And as plates smash together, one plate will subduct or actually go under another with enough force, and as one plate goes under, subducts under another plate, you have tremendous amounts of heat , and smashing, and rock grinding, and it creates, under severe forces and friction, it melts and causes magma which causes earthquakes and volcanoes, and volcanoes come up and spew up crap, and that forms island chains. And that is how Japan was created. If you look specifically at the plates in question, the Philippine plate and the Pacific plate are actually smashing as indicated by the triangles pointing the direction they're moving. These two plates are actually smashing into the Eurasian Plate and there sits Japan, a product of these plates converging together and the volcanic forces which have pushed up magma and caused the island chains themselves. And in fact, this particular part of the Pacific is so wrought with activity of volcanic origin and plates smashing together it's called the Ring of Fire. The Ring of Fire, you've probably heard reference already. The Ring of Fire specifically relates to the volcanic activity. That's what caused the islands to be created in the first place, and it's still going on. This is not an ancient thing. Fuji itself, Mount Fuji, was an old volcano which is now not active but Japan has over 100 active volcanoes right now they're keeping tabs on and every now and again you'll hear about some of them blowing up. And historically there are tales of great devastation caused by the active volcanoes of Japan. In today's world there is actually a tourist industry sprung up. There are several places you can go to watch active volcanoes. Along with volcanic activity comes geothermal stuff. So there are hot springs plentiful across Japan. You can go visit them in in tourist functions as well. But while it might be fun and dandy and a great economic activity for Japan to visit volcanoes and hot springs, there is a downside to all these plates converging and that of course is earthquake activity. You know this already. Japan is wrought with earthquakes, has historically been leveled by earthquakes, and many, many times in the past, usually in fairly predictable cycles of anywhere from 80 to 100 years, a major earthquake will just level parts of Tokyo or other major cities. The Japanese pride themselves in upping their technology to resist earthquakes. Their buildings are at the highest codes in the world to make sure they can withstand earthquakes. You can see from this map just some seismic activity in the last 30 years of stuff that's happened all over in all major islands and even the minor islands of Japan. It is of significant note that if and when Japan gets leveled by the next big earthquake, and it's not a matter of if it's simply when, this will affect world economy. Japan is a major financial center on planet earth and when a serious natural disaster like earthquake strikes, it will affect the rest of planet Earth. Yes, that's right. A major earthquake in Japan is going to affect markets in Europe, the United States and everywhere else. Now, let's shift to the final physical thing to consider with Japan and that is resources. And this is an easy one. They ain't got none. It's bizarre to think about this, but the Japanese, this second biggest economy on planet Earth, rich as rich gets, but they actually don't have any stuff. What kind of stuff am I talking about? the natural resource stuff. They have virtually no natural energy resources. None. They got no coal. They got no oil. They re;y heavy on geothermal we've talked about, but also nuclear and other stuff. They're big importers of coal, of oil,and everything else. They have no energy. They don't really have a lot of steel iron ore resources. Some minerals here and there scattered, but not really a lot. And to be a big rich industrial economy, you got to have stuff. Think about that as we go through Japanese history. They are rich, but not off of natural resources. They have to import heavily almost all things. Now, let's put all this together. What can we infer and what can we understand about Japanese history and its current status given just the physical world? Okay? Just the physical world. How is that impact Japan historically and today? When we consider the mountains and forest cover of Japan, 70-75 % mountain, tough mountains and forest cover, you have a high concentration of population and of industry in the rest of that 20 to 25 percent that's left over. High concentration of peoples, high levels of urbanization, some of the highest in the world, almost everybody lives in a city, and those cities are very concentrated on the eastern sides of mostly Honshu and the southern most islands. If we combine those mountains and those forests with it's island status, we see that Japan has not historically nor today been a big producer of huge. They don't have a lot of arable land. They don't have a lot of land to grow food to feed 127 million people. And that's a lot, by the way, packed into this not so big country. They have some of the highest yield agricultural systems on planet Earth. And think about this. A high dependence on the sea, they're an island that can't grow a lot of food. So you eat the food in the water around you. And if you've ever been to any real sushi restaurants in Japan or the Pacific Rim, you know that the Japanese eat every damn thing it's pulled out of the ocean. There is no holds barred. You pull it out of the water, they'll eat it. Octopus, or whale or dolphin. You dredge it up, sea urchin, we'll eat it. Real raw bars have everything under the Sun or everything under the sea I should say and that's because of their physical situation. On top of that, what does this mean they have high-yield agriculture? What's the highest yield agricultural crop you can grow? Oh! If you said rice give yourself a sushi. And that brings me full circle. The most productive crop you can grow in a small amount pf land is rice because you can crop it a couple, maybe three times a year, and you can get tons of rice per unit area. And that's why the Japanese depends so highly on rice production, and combine that with seafood What's this? Rice, seafood, BAM, sushi. That's what I'm talking about. That's so distinctively Japanese because of their physical environment. We're not done yet, though. Put together the mountains, put together the forest, put together their island status, and put together their no resources, and you have a country that is extremely, extremely dependent on trade. Japan has no oil to sell, they have no natural resources to sell directly like many other countries. They must make stuff, they must trade stuff, they import all of their energy resources. Trade is of the essence. They have to pull all this stuff in. So to make money, they have to make that stuff worth more. They are an extremely industrialized nation. That's how they got rich. They've done it in two different cycles in history that we're going to get to. But they can't grow/mine/just produce natural stuff. They have to import all that stuff and produce it into something worth more they can then export. Like what? Oh I don't know. Like cars, like video games, like all electronics, like everything that you buy from Japan. Let me finish with this. This separate status of Japan just off the coast of Asia has historically kept them self-reliant and kind of culturally distinct. China's always been the big player in this part of the world and Japan's always been on the fringe. Just over there, just distinct, just out of the limelight, just out of the focus that's kept them separate, culturally unique. And we're going to see how this separateness has helped them evolve over the last couple thousand years in this isolated evolution into this powerhouse of a nation-state we now call Japan. Let's get to that next.