In early days that was an extremely dangerous voyage (shipbuilding technology being primitive) and communication was usually by way of Korea and the Shantung Peninsula, reducing the longest water crossing to 200 miles or so. It is about 500 miles across the East China Sea from Shanghai to Nagasaki. The Japanese islands are laid out in such a way that from the Chinese point of view they are largely hidden behind Korea. Japanese trade during its early history was mainly with Korea and China. The native peoples of Hokkaido were neither numerous enough nor technologically advanced enough to cause the Japanese any concern. This also was never considered a part of Japan before the Russians appeared on the scene and the Japanese took steps to establish a presence there in order to keep them out. To the north, Japan was bounded by the large island of Hokkaido. They were taken under Japanese control in the 17th century to make sure that they did not fall into the hands of the Spanish or Portuguese, but were not incorporated into the Japanese state at that time, being a private possession of the Daimyo of Satsuma.
The Ryukyu Islands long had no official contact with Japan, but dealt rather with China for several centuries. However, the islands are simply too small to have ever become important. There is no doubt that there has been movement of people up and down this chain and the people of the Ryukyu's have spoken a dialect of Japanese for a long time. To the south, there is an almost continuous chain of islands extending from Tanegashima, just off the southern end of Kyushu, down through and beyond the Ryukyu Islands all the way to Taiwan. They never had to give any thought to what might be on the other sides. To the Japanese, the Pacific was a boundary of their world, not a route to somewhere else. Before the Spanish began sending ships between Mexico and the Philippines late in the 16th century there was almost no naval activity in the Pacific ocean that had the capacity to disturb Japan in any way. Japan is located on an archipelago of mountainous, volcanic islands in the northwestern corner of the Pacific Ocean. This has not always been the case and throughout most of its history Japan practised an "isolationist" policy that allowed trade and contact with foreigners but restricted their movement and influence to small enclaves on the coast. Japanese products from high-tech companies like Sony are to be found all over the world and have played their part in enriching society and culture - one only has to think of the once ubiquitous "Walkman" of the 1980s. It is now common to see Japanese tourists throughout the world and Japan itself now features as a popular destination for Western tourists. A wealthy nation of more than 100 million people that is extensively involved in world wide commerce. Japan today is a modern democracy and economy comparable to the European and USA model of politico-economics. Introduction Introduction to Japanese History: Geography A satellite image of Japan Permission is granted to copy, distribute, and/or modify this document under the terms of the Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.Ĭontents A History of Japan: From Mythology to Nationhood Introduction
Japanese History From Mythology to Nationhood The current, editable version of this book is available in Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection, at You won't see this message or any elements not part of the book's content when you print or preview this page.
This is the print version of Japanese History
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