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As the Kantō region contains Tokyo, the capital and largest city of Japan, the region is considered the center of Japan's politics and economy. According to the official census on October 1, 2010, by the Statistics Bureau of Japan, the population was 42,607,376,[3] amounting to approximately one third of the total population of Japan.
Other definitions
The Kantō regional governors' association (関東地方知事会, Kantō chihō chijikai) assembles the prefectural governors of Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Saitama, Chiba, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Yamanashi, Nagano, and Shizuoka.[4][5]
The Kantō Regional Development Bureau (関東地方整備局, Kantō chihō seibi-kyoku) of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism in the national government is responsible for eight prefectures generally (Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Saitama, Chiba, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Yamanashi) and parts of the waterways in two others (Nagano and Shizuoka).[6]
The Kantō Bureau of Economy, Trade and Industry (関東経済産業局, Kantō keizai-sangyō-kyoku) is responsible for eleven prefectures: Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Saitama, Chiba, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Niigata, Yamanashi, Nagano and Shizuoka.[7]
In the police organization of Japan, the National Police Agency's supervisory office for Kantō (関東管区警察局, Kantō kanku keisatsu-kyoku) is responsible for the Prefectural police departments of Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa, Niigata, Yamanashi, Nagano and Shizuoka.[8] Tokyo is not part of Kantō or any NPA region, its police has a dedicated liaison office with the national agency of its own.[citation needed]
Geography
Kantō region satellite photo
The surface geology of the Kantō Plain is the Quaternary alluvium and diluvium. The low mountain vegetation at an altitude of about 500 to 900 m in and around the plain is an evergreen broad-leaved forest zone. The distribution height range of laurel forests is 900 m in Hakone, about 800 m in Tanzawa and Takao, about 700 m in Okutama, Oku Musashi and Oku Chichibu, about 600 m in Nishijoshu, Akagiyama, Ashio Mountains and Tsukuba Mountains and about 500 m in Kitage and Nasu Mountains.
Over the evergreen broad-leaved forest are deciduous broad-leaved forests such as beech, birch, and Quercus crispula. In addition, coniferous forests such as Abies veitchii and Betula ermanii spread above the deciduous broad-leaved forest from an altitude of about 1100 m higher than the lower limit of the deciduous broad-leaved forest.
Mountains are spread out such as the Taishaku Mountains, Mt. Takahara, Mt. Nasu, Mt. Yamizo, and Mt. The Kantō Plain, which is the largest plain in Japan. Just north of the Enna Hills is Japan's largest alluvial fan Nasuno at the foot of Mt. The Kujukuri Plain. The southern part of Chiba Prefecture is the Boso hills. The area around Kasumigaura in Ibaraki Prefecture is the Joso plateau and Hitachi plateau. Gunma Prefecture and the Chichibu region of Saitama Prefecture are basins. Rivers such as the Arakawa and Edo rivers pour into Tokyo Bay, and the Kinugawa and Tone rivers flow into the Pacific Ocean in Inubōsaki.
Tokyo Bay is surrounded by the Boso Peninsula and the Miura Peninsula, facing the west side of Chiba Prefecture, a part of Tokyo and the east side of Kanagawa Prefecture, and borders the Pacific Ocean from Uraga Suido. The coastal area is an industrial area. The south side of Kanagawa Prefecture faces Sagami Bay and Sagami Nada. The southern coast of Ibaraki Prefecture faces Kashima Nada. The Sagami Trough, which was the epicenter of the two Kanto earthquakes, passes through Sagami Bay. Efforts are being made to take safety measures against earthquakes in various places.
The highest point is the summit of Mt. Nikko-Shirane (Mt. Oku-Shirane) on the border between Nikko City, Tochigi Prefecture and Katashina Village, Gunma Prefecture. It is the eighth highest point in Japan's prefectures. It is also the highest point north of Kanto (Kanto, Tohoku, Hokkaido). The highest points of the prefectures are Mt. Sanpo (2,483 m) in Saitama, Mt. Kumotori (2,017 m) in Tokyo, Mt. Hiru (1,673 m) in Kanagawa, Mt. Yamizo (1,022 m) in Ibaraki, and Mt. Atago (408 m) in Chiba. Atagoyama in Chiba Prefecture is the lowest among the highest peaks in each prefecture.
The region experiences a humid subtropical climate with a summer to fall precipitation maximum (Cfa/Cwa).
Kamakura is the political capital and it served as the seat of the Kamakura shogunate from 1185 to 1333, established by Minamoto no Yoritomo.
TsurugaokaHachiman in Kamakura
It was the first military government in Japan's history. Kamakura flourished until the fall of the Kamakura Shogunate, and its political functions returned to Kyoto in 1392.
In 1591, Tokugawa Ieyasu gave up control of his five provinces (Mikawa, Tōtōmi, Suruga, Shinano, and Kai) and moved all his soldiers and vassals to his new eight provinces in the Kantō region. The proclamation of this decision happened on the same day Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the de facto ruler of Japan at that time, entered Odawara castle following the surrender of the Hōjō clan after the Siege of Odawara (1590).[9] The moment Ieyasu appointed to rule Kantō, he immediately assign his premier vassals such as Ii Naomasa, Honda Tadakatsu, Sakakibara Yasumasa, and Sakai Ietsugu, son of Sakai Tadatsugu, each to control large area of the former Hōjō clan territories in Kantō. Historian such as Kawamura saw this step was meant to bring order the newly subdued population of the area, while also to guard the eastern domains from the influence or threat from the Satomi clan which was not yet submit to the rule of Toyotomi at that time.[10][11] The governors of Kantō region under Ieyasu rule:
Meanwhile, Ieyasu himself establish his personal new seat of power on Edo town, which at that time was an underdeveloped town in Kantō.[43][a]
In the Edo period, Kanto became the center of modern development. Within the Greater Tokyo Area and especially the Tokyo-Yokohama metropolitan area, Kanto houses not only Japan's seat of government but also the nation's largest group of universities and cultural institutions, the greatest population and a large industrial zone. Although most of the Kanto plain is used for residential, commercial or industrial construction, it is still farmed. Rice is the principal crop, although the zone around Tokyo and Yokohama has been landscaped to grow garden produce for the metropolitan market.[citation needed]
In between January 1918 and April 1920, Japan was afflicted by Spanish flu pandemic, which claimed more than 400,000 Japanese lives.[citation needed]
A watershed moment of Japan's modern history took place in the late Taishō period: the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923. The quake, which claimed more than 100,000 lives and ravaged Greater Tokyo area, occurred at a time when Japan was still reeling from the economic recession in reaction to the high-flying years during World War I.[citation needed]
The name Kanto literally means "East of the Barrier". The name Kanto is nowadays generally considered to mean the region east (東) of the Hakone Barrier (箱根関). An antonym of Kanto, "West of the Barrier" means the Kansai region, which lies western Honshu and was the center of feudal Japan.[citation needed]
After the Great Kanto earthquake (1923), many people in Kanto started creating art with different varieties of colors. They made art of earthquake and small towns to symbolize the small towns destroyed in the quake.[citation needed]
The Japanese House of Representatives' divides it into the North Kantō (北関東, Kita-Kantō) electorate which consists of Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, and Saitama prefectures, Tokyo electorate, and the South Kantō (南関東, Minami-Kantō) electorate which consists of Chiba, Kanagawa, and Yamanashi prefectures (note that Yamanashi is out of the Kantō region in the orthodox definition).
Keirin's South Kantō (南関東, Minami-Kantō) consists of Chiba, Kanagawa, and Shizuoka prefectures.
East and West
This division is not often but sometimes used.
East Kantō (東関東, Higashi-Kantō): Ibaraki, Tochigi, and Chiba prefectures.
West Kantō (西関東, Nishi-Kantō): Gunma, Saitama, Tokyo, Kanagawa (and sometimes Yamanashi) prefectures.
Inland and Coastal
This division is sometimes used in economics and geography. The border can be modified if the topography is taken for prefectural boundaries.
Coastal Kantō (関東沿岸部, Kantō engan-bu): Ibaraki, Chiba, Tokyo, and Kanagawa prefectures.
Greater Kantō
The Japanese national government defines the National Capital Region (首都圏, Shuto-ken) as the Kantō region plus Yamanashi Prefecture. Japan's national public broadcaster NHK uses Kantō-kō-shin-etsu (関東甲信越) involving Yamanashi, Nagano, and Niigata prefectures for regional programming and administration.
The Kantō region is the most highly developed, urbanized, and industrialized part of Japan. Tokyo and Yokohama form a single industrial complex with a concentration of light and heavy industry along Tokyo Bay. Other major cities in the area include Kawasaki (in Kanagawa Prefecture); Saitama (in Saitama Prefecture); and Chiba (in Chiba Prefecture). Smaller cities, farther away from the coast, house substantial light and automotive industries. The average population density reached 1,192 persons per square kilometer in 1991.
Economy
The Kantō region largely corresponds to the Tokyo Metropolitan Area with the exception that it does not contain Yamanashi prefecture.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Area has the largest city economy in the world and is one of the major global center of trade and commerce along with New York City, Los Angeles, Shanghai, Paris, Seoul, and London.
The population of Kantō region is very similar to that of the Greater Tokyo Area[51][better source needed] except that it does not contain Yamanashi Prefecture and contains the rural populations throughout the region.
Per Japanese census data,[52] and the Kantō region's data,[53] population has continuously grown but the population growth rate has slowed since early 1992.
The Kantō region at the 2020 census had a population of 43.65 million people.[54]
^Historian Adam Sadler saw this step as the riskiest move Ieyasu ever made—to leave his home province and rely on the uncertain loyalty of the formerly Hōjō clan samurai in Kantō. In the end however, it worked out brilliantly for Ieyasu. He reformed the Kantō region, controlled and pacified the Hōjō samurai and improved the underlying economic infrastructure of the lands. Also, because Kantō was somewhat isolated from the rest of Japan, Ieyasu was able to ally with daimyos of north-east Japan such as Date Masamune, Mogami Yoshiaki, Satake Yoshishige and Nanbu Nobunao; he was also able to maintain a unique level of autonomy from Toyotomi Hideyoshi's rule. Within a few years, Ieyasu had become the second most powerful daimyo in Japan. It was said by anecdotal proverb that: "Ieyasu won the Empire by retreating."[44] Historian Watanabe Daimon stated that the general opinion was that Ieyasu was reluctant about his transfer to Kantō. However, Daimon stated that thinking Ieyasu was reluctant was an opinion of a later era. Daimon suspected that Ieyasu actually saw this transfer positively as he realised a huge undeveloped potential by making Edo as his seat of power.[45] Historian Andō yūichirō further added, the true intention of Hideyoshi transferring Ieyasu to Kantō was to weaken the power of the Tokugawa clan by moving them from their ancestral land in Mikawa, as he expected the former Hōjō vassals in Kantō would rebel against Ieyasu. However, this backfired as Ieyasu not only doubled the territories he control, but he also further added the bulk of new vassals in Kantō to the already impressive political and military power of Tokugawa regime as they already absorbed the army of Imagawa clan and Takeda clan before.[9]
^ abAndō yūichirō (2022). "だから織田と豊臣はあっさり潰れた…徳川家康が｢戦国最後の天下人｣になれた本当の理由" [The reason why Oda and Toyotomi were easily defeated... Tokugawa Ieyasu was the "last of the Sengoku period."]. President Online (in Japanese). PRESIDENT Inc. pp. 1–4. Retrieved June 4, 2024.
^Yuu Kawamura. "徳川家康の新領国に対する家臣団配置―小田原落城直後の上総の一動向―" [Deployment of Tokugawa Ieyasu’s vassals in his new territory: Movements in Kazusa immediately after the fall of Odawara Castle]. 歴史手帳』6巻2号）(History Notebook, Vol. 6, No. 2) (in Japanese).
^Otaki Town History Editorial Committee (1991). 大多喜町史 [Otaki Town History]. Otaki, Chiba Prefecture. pp. 310–311. Retrieved May 22, 2024.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^高崎市史編さん委員会 (1968). 高崎市史 Volume 1 (in Japanese). 高崎市. p. 151. Retrieved May 9, 2024.
^館林市史編さん委員会 (2016). 館林市史 通史編2 近世館林の歴史 [Tatebayashi City History General History Part 2 Early Modern Tatebayashi History]. 館林市.
^日本史広辞典編集委員会 (2000). 日本史要覧 [Japanese History Handbook] (in Japanese). 山川出版社. p. 121. ISBN4634607204. Retrieved June 8, 2024.
