History UsefulNotes / TheFortySevenPrefectures

The second largest prefecture by land size, particularly renowned for its natural beauty. Several Buddhist temples and a burial site in the south of the prefecture are designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Kosode Coast in Kuji city is best known as the filming location for Sodegahama in ''Amachan'', a popular TV drama that explores the region's sea urchin-diving industry. Also known for "The Three Great Noodles of Morioka", three popular and unique noodle dishes eaten throughout the area. As noted above, two of the biggest earthquakes to impact Japan had their epicenters off the coast of Iwate. The 1896 one caused a tsunami measuring up to 38 m in height (which would not be surpassed until the 2011 earthquake) and reaching the shores of UsefulNotes/{{Hawaii}}.\\\

Has a reputation as Japan's hardest drinking prefecture. Known as Tosa Province back in the day. Birthplace of samurai/politician/negotiator/revolutionary/reformer Ryoma Sakamoto, commonly known as "that ''ronin'' from Tosa" during his lifetime.\\\

The least populous prefecture. Formerly known as Inaba province, it's deeply connected to the oldest legends of Japan. Similar to the nearby Shimane prefecture, it features heavily in the myths of Okuninushi, a legendary ruler of the land who yielded it to the first Emperor of Japan, and is a home of his trusty sidekick, White Hare of Inaba (who is venerated in a small shrine in Tottori city). Sakaiminato, a small fishing port in the prefecture, is famous for its Eshima Ohashi bridge over the Lake Nakaumi — "the scariest bridge in the world" due to it being exceptionally steep. The prefecture also features the only genuine sand dune in the country, which is a significant tourist trap as of itself.\\\

Historically divided into two provinces, Owari in the north and Mikawa in the south. UsefulNotes/OdaNobunaga and UsefulNotes/ToyotomiHideyoshi were both from Owari (hence why the former was, pre-ascendancy, known as the Fool of Owari), while Okazaki in Mikawa was UsefulNotes/TokugawaIeyasu's ancestral home.\\\

Sometimes called the "Tokyo's water faucet", Gunma is a relative mountainous backwater, whose main fame comes from the natural beauty of its valleys, crystal clear rivers coming out of them, and supplying the drinking water for the 1/4 of the Japanese population that lives in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. During the UsefulNotes/SengokuJidai it was known for the production of horses, and little else, but after the Meiji Restoration it was a birthplace of the famous Nakajima Aircraft Company, reborn after the war as the Fuji Heavy Industries conglomerate, best known nowadays for their ''Subaru'' brand -- after which it finally rebranded itself in 2017. The city of Tomioka was site to Japan's first silk reeling industry, with machines imported from France. The silk mill is still remarkably well-preserved and has UNESCO World Heritage Site status. Among others, ''Manga/InitialD'' and ''Anime/Nichijou'' take place here.\\\

Sometimes called the "Tokyo's water faucet", Gunma is a relative mountainous backwater, whose main fame comes from the natural beauty of its valleys, crystal clear rivers coming out of them, and supplying the drinking water for the 1/4 of the Japanese population that lives in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. During the UsefulNotes/SengokuJidai it was known for the production of horses, and little else, but after the Meiji Restoration it was a birthplace of the famous Nakajima Aircraft Company, reborn after the war as the Fuji Heavy Industries conglomerate, best known nowadays for their ''Subaru'' brand -- after which it finally rebranded itself in 2017. The city of Tomioka was site to Japan's first silk reeling industry, with machines imported from France. The silk mill is still remarkably well-preserved and has UNESCO World Heritage Site status.\\\

In the northeastern part of Honshu, north of the Kanto Plain lies the Tohoku Region; ''Tōhoku'' literally translates as [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "east-north"]]. Historically this is a less-developed region, as it was settled by Japanese centuries after the center of its civilization developed to the south. The mountainous geography of the area, the rather harsh winters, and the relative lack of easy transport access (by road or by sea - the rivers generally aren't suitable for boats and there aren't many decent harbors) further slowed settlement. Despite the relatively short growing season, the region is now known as an agricultural center, as a disproportionate amount of the nation's rice is grown here since similar populated areas in the south went for industrialization first. This combination of factors is likely why someone with a TohokuRegionalAccent (which sounds like the speaker is having a very bad cold) gets stereotyped as a backwoods hillbilly, and the reason why it's known as the GrimUpNorth of the archipelago (even after Hokkaido is settled extensively). Just count how many times a media is basing their environment from the GhibliHills of Aomori and Akita, which looks like something you see from ''Anime/MyNeighborTotoro''.\\\

Historically known as Hitachi Province. Yes, as in the Hitachi company that might have made your TV or air conditioner - the company was founded in the namesake town located in the prefecture in 1910. Despite formally counting as Kanto, it's the place where the TohokuRegionalAccent first starts to be heard: the locals call their prefecture ''[[FunetikAksent Imbaragi]]''. Tsukuba city, to the northeast of Tokyo, hosted Expo '85, a specialized World's Fair focused on technology.\\\

Before the Edo period, the KansaiRegionalAccent was the prestige dialect of Japan, as it was the speech of the royal family and the shogunate. Even today, the Kyoto variant still retains much of its splendor, being regarded as posh and soft-sounding compared to other variants.\\\

The current prefectural system was developed out of the UsefulNotes/MeijiRestoration in 1868; prior to that Japan was divided into provinces (''kuni'' (国) — "lands" or "countries" in Japanese), which weren't legally the fiefdoms the local daimyo ruled over as feudal lords — they were a separate administrative division stemming from the ancient system created by prince Shotoku in the Heian period, — but for administrative purposes ended up as the same thing: the government usually simply installed the most powerful of the local daimyo as an official governor of the province. Technically, the provinces of Japan were never abolished (what was abolished was the ''-han'' (藩) fiefdom system that the local daimyo actually ruled, which ran concurrent to the provinces - the current prefectures came from a couple rounds of consolidating some 300 ''han'') but nowadays are chiefly used for local-branding purposes. There's a good deal of overlap between the boundaries in both systems, though - if you compare a map of Japan's feudal provinces with a map of its modern prefectures, their borders don't deviate all that much from each other (the big exception is the Tohoku region, where two provinces are now six prefectures).

[[ThirtySecondsOverTokyo Contrary to]] [[TokyoIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse popular belief]], UsefulNotes/{{Japan}} is not only Tokyo. There are 46 other prefectures that the country is divided into, which are in turn (for the most part) divided further into cities (市, ''shi'') and districts (郡, ''gun''); districts are further subdivided into towns (町, ''machi'') and villages (村, ''mura''). Prefectures are largely dependent on the national government in Tokyo for financial support and their organization is defined by the Local Autonomy Law, which went into effect in 1947. Prefectures, however, elect their own governors and do get some autonomy in their policy-making. If you're familiar with how the American government is set up, an oft-used analogy is the relationship between [[UsefulNotes/AmericanPoliticalSystem the county and the state it's part of]].

Shirakawa-go, a remote village containing unique thatched farmhouses the style of gassho-zukuri is located here. The village specialized in sericulture and gunpowder manufacturing. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.\\\

Osaka City is the third largest city in Japan and considered the capital of Western Japan and [[TheRival an antithesis]] to Tokyo. [[BerserkButton Don't try to bring up Tokyo here]], Osakans are proud of their heritage and rightly so; it was for the longest time ''the'' center of Japan, being located close enough to the sea giving it easy access to foreign trade, close enough to Kyoto to receive its continuous patronage, and close enough to Ise to receive moral support. Any merchant who wanted to stop over to Japan had to land on Osaka, and it soon became the definition of cosmopolitan in the eyes of many Japanese during the Middle Ages.\\\

A major industrial center, including the city of Kitakyushu, which is a huge shipbuilding stronghold, and is (in)famous for the confusion about its capital's name: because Fukuoka, like many modern Japanese cities,[[note]]Including Kitakyushu, literally Northern Kyushu, which is based around the old Kokura city[[/note]] was formed by amalgamation of the older historical towns, its main railway station is still called by the name of one of its constituents, Hakata ward/town, which throws a lot of visitors off their course. Ironically, a new city was to be called Hakata, as it was larger and more developed than its rival Fukuoka, but a group of samurai from the latter stormed the meeting and essentially forced the officials to name the city Fukuoka at gunpoint. On another note, the city also has Kyushu's only imperial university, Kyushu University (''Kyūdai''), as well as the secret headquarters of the WorldDomination organization [[Manga/ExcelSaga ACROSS]].\\\

1. '''Hokkaido (北海道, ''Hokkaidō'')'''

!34. '''Hiroshima (広島)'''

2. '''Aomori (青森)'''

3. '''Iwate (岩手)'''

4. '''Miyagi (宮城)'''

5. '''Akita (秋田)'''

6. '''Yamagata (山形)'''

7. '''Fukushima (福島)'''

8. '''Ibaraki (茨城)'''

9. '''Tochigi (栃木)'''

10. '''Gunma (群馬)'''

11. '''Saitama (埼玉)'''

12. '''Chiba (千葉)'''

13. '''UsefulNotes/{{Tokyo}} (東京, ''Tōkyō'')'''

14. '''Kanagawa (神奈川)'''

Although long ago absorbed into the Tokyo metropolitan region, Yokohama remains a separately incorporated city (a category which technically excludes Tokyo) and thus is classified as the second-largest city and the largest proper city in Japan. During the Sengoku Jidai, the city of Odawara to the southwest of Yokohama was the seat of the Hojo clan, until it was overtaken by UsefulNotes/ToyotomiHideyoshi in 1590. The Port of Yokohama was established in 1859 after Commodore Matthew Perry forced Japan to allow foreign trade; it eventually overtook Kobe to become the busiest port in Japan and one of the busiest ports in the world. Nissan, one of the world's top automobile manufacturers and a notable proponent of electric vehicles, is headquartered in Yokohama. Notable video game companies headquartered in Yokohama include Creator/KoeiTecmo and Creator/ArcSystemWorks. Yokohama also plays host to possibly Japan's most famous Chinatown. The Yokohama Landmark Tower is the tallest building in both Kanagawa Prefecture and the Greater Tokyo Area; although less than half the height of Tokyo Skytree at 296 meters, neither the Skytree nor runner-up Tokyo Tower are considered fully-habitable buildings.\\\\

!!Hokuriku (北陸)

15. '''Niigata (新潟)'''

16. '''Toyama (富山)'''

17. '''Ishikawa (石川)'''

18. '''Fukui (福井)'''

!!Koshin'etsu (甲信越, ''Kōshin'etsu'')

19. '''Yamanashi (山梨)'''

20. '''Nagano (長野)'''

!!!Gifu

21. '''Gifu (岐阜)'''

!!Tokai (東海, ''Tōkai'')

22. '''Shizuoka (静岡)'''

23. '''Aichi (愛知)'''

24. '''Mie (三重)'''

25. '''Shiga (滋賀)'''

26. '''Kyoto (京都, ''Kyōto'')'''

27. '''Osaka (大阪, ''Ōsaka'')'''

28. '''Hyogo (兵庫, ''Hyōgo'')'''

29. '''Nara (奈良)'''

30. '''Wakayama (和歌山)'''

31. '''Tottori (鳥取)'''

32. '''Shimane (島根)'''

33. '''Okayama (岡山)'''

34. '''Hiroshima (広島)'''

35. '''Yamaguchi (山口)'''

36. '''Tokushima (徳島)'''

37. '''Kagawa (香川)'''

38. '''Ehime (愛媛)'''

39. '''Kochi (高知, ''Kōchi'')'''

40. '''Fukuoka (福岡)'''

41. '''Saga (佐賀)'''

42. '''Nagasaki (長崎)'''

43. '''Kumamoto (熊本)'''

44. '''Oita (大分, ''Ōita'')'''

45. '''Miyazaki (宮崎)'''

46. '''Kagoshima (鹿児島)'''

47. '''Okinawa (沖縄 ''Uchinaa'')'''

If Tokyo is [[UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity New York]], Saitama is UsefulNotes/NewJersey minus the petrochemical refineries (they're more to the south and east in Chiba and Kanagawa). Namesake of the protagonist of ''Webcomic/OnePunchMan''. [[https://soranews24.com/2019/01/10/daily-horde-of-commuters-into-tokyo-is-larger-than-one-of-historys-fiercest-conquering-armies/ Over 900,000 of the populace commute south into Tokyo for work every day, a larger movement of people than]] UsefulNotes/AttilaTheHun's horde. The forests in the city of Tokorozawa are the real world inspiration for ''Anime/MyNeighborTotoro'' and have been retroactively named after him.\\\

If Tokyo is [[UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity New York]], Saitama is UsefulNotes/NewJersey minus the petrochemical refineries (they're more to the south and east in Chiba and Kanagawa). Namesake of the protagonist of ''Webcomic/OnePunchMan''. [[https://soranews24.com/2019/01/10/daily-horde-of-commuters-into-tokyo-is-larger-than-one-of-historys-fiercest-conquering-armies/ Over 900,000 of the populace commute south into Tokyo for work every day, a larger movement of people than]] UsefulNotes/AttilaTheHun's horde. The forests in the city of Tokorozawa are the real world inspiration for ''Anime/MyNeighborTotoro'' and have outright been retroactively named for him.\\\