Japan

Japan ⁱ/dʒəˈpæn/ (Japanese: 日本 Nippon or Nihon; formally 日本国  Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku, literally the "State of Japan") is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters that make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin", which is why the country is sometimes referred to as the "Land of the Rising Sun". Japan is an archipelago of 6,852 islands, the four largest being Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku. Together, these four islands hold about 97 percent of the country's land area. Japan has the world's tenth-largest population, with more than 126 million people. Honshū's Greater Tokyo Area includes the de facto capital city of Tokyo and several surrounding prefectures. It is the largest metropolitan area in the world, with more than 30 million residents.

More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan