Japanese archipelago
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The Template:Nihongo is an archipelago of 14,125 islands that form the country of Japan.<ref name="recount">Template:Cite web</ref> It extends over Template:Cvt<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> from the Sea of Okhotsk in the northeast to the East China and Philippine seas in the southwest along the Pacific coast of the Eurasian continent, and consists of three island arcs from north to south: the Northeastern Japan Arc, the Southwestern Japan Arc, and the Ryukyu Island Arc. The Daitō Islands, the Izu–Bonin–Mariana Arc, and the Kuril Islands neighbor the archipelago.
Japan is the largest island country in East Asia and the fourth-largest island country in the world with Template:Convert.<ref name="world-atlas">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Geospatial Information Authority of Japan 2019">Template:Cite web</ref> It has an exclusive economic zone of Template:Convert.<ref name="kaiho">Template:Cite web</ref>
Terminology
The term "Mainland Japan" is used to distinguish the large islands of the Japanese archipelago from the remote, smaller islands; it refers to the main islands of Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu, and Shikoku.<ref name="main-islands-japan">Template:Cite web</ref> From 1943 until the end of the Pacific War, Karafuto Prefecture (south Sakhalin) was designated part of the mainland. Geographically speaking the term "mainland" is somewhat inaccurate, as this refers to an expanse of territory that is attached to a continental landmass.
The term "home islands" was an exonym used at the end of World War II to define the area where Japanese sovereignty and constitutional rule of its emperor would be restricted.Template:Citation needed The term is also commonly used today to distinguish the archipelago from Japan's colonies and other territories.<ref>Milton W. Meyer, Japan: A Concise History, fourth ed. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012, Template:ISBN, p. 2 Template:Webarchive.</ref>
Paleogeography
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Geography
The archipelago consists of 14,125 islands<ref name="recount">Template:Cite web</ref> (here defined as land more than 100 m in circumference), of which 430 are inhabited.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> The five main islands, from north to south, are Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa.<ref name="main-islands-japan" /> Honshu is the largest and is referred to as the Japanese mainland.<ref>"Japanese Archipelago" Template:Webarchive, TheFreeDictionary.com, retrieved 24 June 2013.</ref>
The topography is divided as:
- Hokkaido, Honshu, and Shikoku and its surrounding islands;
- Kyushu and the Ryukyu arc, which is composed of the Ryukyu Islands and other surrounding islands;
- Eastern part of Hokkaido and the Kuril Islands;
- Nanpō Islands and the Izu Peninsula (part of Izu-Bonin-Mariana Arc).