Western japan

As West Japan ( jap. 西日本 , Nishi-Nihon or Nishi-Nippon ) is referred to in a rough, not legally defined regional division of Japan about the western half of the country. In contrast to Eastern Japan , it then includes the regions of Kyūshū ( southern Japan ), Shikoku , Chūgoku , Kinki and, depending on the definition, parts of Chūbu . In some prefectures of Chūbus, the assignment to western Japan or eastern Japan varies.

use

Power grid of Japan with local frequency information

Outlines of the Amur plate under discussion with western Japan, eastern Japan on the Okhotsk plate

Japanese dialects, the East Japanese dialects in shades of blue, the West Japanese in shades of green

The division of Japan into East Japan and West Japan is not legally established. This is why this division is most widely used among the people. The origin of a Japanese is often categorized based on whether he comes from the "East" or "West".

The term is used, among other things, in a number of names of regionally divided, formerly public companies such as B. the transport companies JR Nishi-Nihon , Nishi-Nippon Kōsokudōro , or other organizations such as the Nishi-Nihon Sangyō Bōeki Convention Kyōkai ( 西 日本 産業 貿易 コ ン ベ ン シ ョ ン 協会 , West Japan Industry and Trade Convention Association ).

The division into west and east is also important in the electricity network, with eastern Japan being supplied with a mains frequency of 50 Hz and western Japan with a mains frequency of 60 Hz.

Geologically a fault that separates Itoigawa-Shizuoka Line ( Engl. Shortly ISTL ) between the Amur and the Okhotsk microplate (is disputed their autonomy), East West Japan.

Linguistically, the dialects of Western Japan are grouped as Nishi-Nihon hōgen ( 西 日本 方言 ) or Seibu hōgen ( 西部 方言 ), and further differentiated regionally. The dividing line between Eastern and Western Japanese dialects is also known as the Itoigawa- Hamana Lake Line.

Subdivision

Western Japan consists of the following regions and their prefectures:

Kyushu (possibly seen separately as southern Japan ) Fukuoka saga Nagasaki Kumamoto Ōita Miyazaki Kagoshima Okinawa Shikoku Tokushima (sometimes to southern Japan) Kagawa Ehime Kōchi (sometimes to southern Japan) Chūgoku Tottori Shimane Okayama Hiroshima Yamaguchi (sometimes to South Japan)

Kinki Mie (possibly to Central Japan) Shiga Kyoto Osaka Hyogo Nara Wakayama Chūbu (varies according to definition; in some cases Central Japan is seen separately) Koshin'etsu ( Niigata , almost always included in Eastern Japan) ( Yamanashi , partly part of Kantō and almost always part of Eastern Japan) ( Nagano , almost always part of Eastern Japan) Hokuriku without Niigata (e.g. through the Hokuriku dialect, culturally Western Japanese) Toyama (often to West Japan) Ishikawa (often to Western Japan) Fukui (often to Western Japan) Tōkai Gifu (sometimes to Western Japan) ( Shizuoka , almost always included in Eastern Japan; exception e.g. NTT) Aichi (sometimes to Western Japan)

Differences and similarities with Eastern Japan

Both East Japan and West Japan have an urban metropolitan area, in East Japan this consists of the cities of Tokyo , Yokohama , Kawasaki , Saitama and Chiba and in West Japan from Kyoto , Osaka and Kobe . Despite the significantly larger urban area in Kantō , eastern Japan has fewer inhabitants, especially since it is smaller than western Japan, and two of the three regions of eastern Japan ( Hokkaidō and Tōhoku ) are very sparsely populated and are almost exclusively used for agriculture - while western Japan can say that it is relatively evenly populated, apart from the metropolitan area and Shikoku . Tokyo and Osaka, which are the most important trading cities and at the same time the largest cities in the respective halves of Japan, are connected by a Shinkansen line, which enables many jobs in the other city and benefits both cities.

List of the largest cities

The following list includes the ten largest cities that can be assigned to western Japan in the broadest sense. The cultural heart of western Japan is Kansai with Osaka, Kyōto and Kobe. The Chūkyō metropolitan region around Nagoya is often counted as part of Eastern Japan, in other contexts it is understood as the center of a separate region, Central Japan ( Naka-Nihon ). The North Kyushu metropolitan area (which also extends into Yamaguchi Prefecture on Honshū) is the fourth largest in Japan and the center of southern Japan , if it is understood as an independent region.

city	Population (VZ 2005)	prefecture
Osaka	2,628,811	Osaka
Nagoya	2,215,065	Aichi
Kobe	1,525,393	Hyogo
Kyoto	1,474,811	Kyoto
Fukuoka	1,401,279	Fukuoka
Hiroshima	1,154,391	Hiroshima
Kitakyushu	993.525	Fukuoka
Sakai	830.966	Osaka
Niigata	813,847	Niigata
Hamamatsu	804.032	Shizuoka

Web links

• West Japan and East Japan