1. The Land of the rising sun

2. Japan is a 3,000-island archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, east of China and Korea, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to Taiwan in the south. It is composed of over 3,000 islands, the largest of which are Hokkaidō, Honshū, Shikoku, and Kyūshū.

3. Population density In 2004, Japan had a total population of 127.69 million, ranking it the ninth largest in the world. Most Japanese live in urban areas. The Kantô and Nôbi plains are home to Japan's largest cities and over half of the nation's people. Tokyo is at the heart of the Kantô Plain.

5. The Imperial family Japan is a constitutional monarchy where the power of the Emperor is very limited. As a ceremonial figurehead, he is defined by the constitution as "the symbol of the state and of the unity of the people". ( 天皇 tennō, literally "heavenly sovereign")

6. Mt. Fujiyama

7. During the Edo period (1603-1868), Himeji was an important commercial center for western Japan.

8. The floating Torrii Gate in front of Miyajima Island

9. World Cup domed soccer stadium in Miyagi

10. Satellite image of Kansai International Airport in Osaka Bay in Japan. This is an overview image showing the airport on its artificial island in the bay.

11. Landfill The waste disposal area is excavated and the inside is exposed. Main waste material is an incinerated ash or a grinded plastic dust. Cover soil is laid down for dust splash prevention. Over 3.5 million tons of garbage is produced by Tokyo residents every year!

12. The Yushi Incident In 1966, a PCB poisoning event in Kyushu, Japan involved accidental contamination of rice oil with 2000 ppm of PCBs. This resulted in the illness of more than 1000 villagers. Two out of 12 children were stillborn and nearly all of the babies showed signs of PCB diseases.

13. "The Great Wave Off Kanagawa" - 19 th Century woodcut

14. Tsunami Japan has implemented an extensive program of building tsunami walls of up to 4.5 m (13.5 ft) high in front of populated coastal areas. Early warning systems enable low-lying populated areas to evacuate.

15. The estimated magnitude of the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake was between 7.9 and 8.4 on the Richter scale

16. Pearl Harbor Day The Imperial Japanese Navy made its attack on Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941. The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii, was aimed at the Pacific Fleet of the United States Navy and its defending Army Air Forces and Marine air forces. The U.S. public saw the attack as a treacherous act and rallied against the Empire of Japan, causing the United States to enter World War II.

17. Fat Man Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 60,000 feet into the air The plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki on the morning of August 9, 1945 , had a blast yield equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT generating an estimated at 7000 degrees Fahrenheit and 624 mph winds. The total number of residents killed may have been as many as 80,000, including those who died from radiation poisoning in the following months.