Japan 🇯🇵

Japan is a country in Asia with a population of 125,124,989. Its capital is Tokyo. The official currency is JPY, and the main languages are Japanese.

Quick facts

Capital: Tokyo
Continent: Asia
Population: 125,124,989
Area: 377,975 km²
Density: 331 people per km²
Currency: JPY
Languages: Japanese
ISO code: JP

Where Japan sits

Japan 🇯🇵 is one of 48 countries in Asia, with its capital at Tokyo. It covers 377,975 square kilometres — 62nd in the world — and is home to about 125,124,989 people, 11th globally.

The countries it shares a continent with include China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh. If you are learning geography region by region — which works far better than alphabetically, because memory for places is spatial — those are the ones to learn alongside it.

How Japan compares

Raw figures are hard to hold on their own, so it helps to anchor them. In population, Japan sits closest to Ethiopia and Mexico. In land area, its nearest counterparts are Norway and Zimbabwe.

At 331 people per square kilometre it is about 5.6 times the world average of 59.4. It ranks higher by population than by area, so it is more crowded than its size alone suggests.

Japanese is listed as official in Japan alone. The JPY is used by Japan and no one else.

To see Japan next to every other country, sort the country rankings by population, area or density; its currency and languages are listed alongside every other country's in world currencies and world languages.

How to remember Japan

Tokyo means 'Eastern Capital'. The city was once called Edo, and it got its new name in 1868, when the emperor's capital moved there from Kyoto in the west. For the flag, think of a red sun rising on a plain white sky.

The flag of Japan: white and red

🇯🇵 The flag is a white flag with a large red disc in the centre. The red disc stands for the sun, which fits the country's nickname, the Land of the Rising Sun. The flag is commonly called the Hinomaru, 'circle of the sun', and it became the official national flag by law in 1999.

Region and neighbours

Japan is an island country in East Asia, in the Pacific Ocean, made up of four major islands and more than 14,000 smaller ones. As an island country it has no land neighbours.

Three facts about Japan

Mount Fuji, a volcano on the island of Honshu, is the highest mountain in Japan at about 3,776 m.
The Greater Tokyo Area is the biggest metropolitan area in the world, with about 37 million people.
Japan's first high-speed Shinkansen ('bullet train') line opened in 1964, just before the Tokyo Summer Olympics.

Sources: Wikipedia: Japan, Wikipedia: Flag of Japan, Wikipedia: Tokyo, Wikipedia: Mount Fuji, Wikipedia: Shinkansen, CIA World Factbook.

Quiz yourself on Japan

Asian capitals quiz — match Japan to Tokyo
Asian flags quiz — spot the Japan flag among its neighbours
Island nations quiz — Japan is an island country

Quizzes that include Japan

Three angles are worth covering for any country — where it is, what its flag looks like, and what its capital is. For Japan those are:

Asia map quiz — place it on a blank map
Asia flags quiz — identify its flag among its neighbours
Asia capitals quiz — match it to Tokyo
Japan capital quiz — five quick questions starting with Japan, plus the answer quizzes most often try to trick you with
Daily Map Challenge — five countries to find on a blank world map, the same five for everyone each day

Doing all three for one continent before moving on is far more efficient than learning flags globally, then capitals globally, then the map.

Nearby countries

Afghanistan 🇦🇫 — capital Kabul
Armenia 🇦🇲 — capital Yerevan
Azerbaijan 🇦🇿 — capital Baku
Bahrain 🇧🇭 — capital Manama
Bangladesh 🇧🇩 — capital Dhaka
Bhutan 🇧🇹 — capital Thimphu
Brunei 🇧🇳 — capital Bandar Seri Begawan
Cambodia 🇰🇭 — capital Phnom Penh
China 🇨🇳 — capital Beijing
Georgia 🇬🇪 — capital Tbilisi
India 🇮🇳 — capital New Delhi
Indonesia 🇮🇩 — capital Jakarta

Frequently asked questions

What are the colours of the Japan flag?

The flag of Japan is a white flag with a large red disc in the centre. The red disc stands for the sun, which fits the country's nickname, the Land of the Rising Sun. The flag is commonly called the Hinomaru, 'circle of the sun', and it became the official national flag by law in 1999.

Which countries border Japan?

None. Japan is an island country in East Asia, in the Pacific Ocean, made up of four major islands and more than 14,000 smaller ones, so it has no land borders with other countries.