Chūgoku region

The Chūgoku region is a distinct geographic area in Japan. It sits at the westernmost end of Honshū, which is the largest island in the country.

The region is bordered by the Kansai region to the east. It also sits near the islands of Kyūshū and Shikoku. Currently, the region is made up of five prefectures. These are Hiroshima, Okayama, Shimane, Tottori, and Yamaguchi. As of the 2020 census, the total population was 7,328,339 people.

The landscape of Chūgoku is not mostly flat. Instead, it is characterized by irregular rolling hills and limited areas of plain land. A major feature of the region is its central mountain range. These mountains run from east to west through the middle of the area. This range creates a physical divide that splits the region into two separate parts.

Because of this division, the region has two very different identities based on which side of the mountains you are on.

Modern tourism often refers to the area as the San'in-San'yō region. This naming system is based on the concepts of yin and yang. The northern part is called San'in, which means "yin of the mountains." This side faces the Sea of Japan. It has an agricultural economy, meaning much of the work involves farming. The southern part is called San'yō, meaning "yang of the mountains." This side faces the Seto Inland Sea. San'yō is a center for heavy industry, which involves large-scale manufacturing.

The name Chūgoku literally translates to "middle country." The exact origin of this name remains unclear to historians. In ancient Japan, the land was divided into provinces called koku. These provinces were classified by their power and their distance from the administrative center in Kansai. One theory suggests Chūgoku referred to the collection of "middle countries" located to the west of the capital. However, fewer than half of the provinces in the modern region were actually classified as middle countries. Another theory is that the name described provinces located between Kansai and Kyūshū. Kyūshū was historically important as a link to mainland Asia.

There is also a linguistic connection to the name of the country China. In Japanese, the characters for Chūgoku are also used to mean China. In Mandarin Chinese, the same characters are used but pronounced Zhōngguó. To avoid confusion between the region and the country, different terms were used in the past. Before the end of the Second World War, China was often called shina. However, the term shina became offensive due to its use during the Sino-Japanese War. As a result, the term was abandoned, and Chūgoku is now used for the Japanese region.

The population of the region is concentrated in specific urban centers. The two largest metropolitan areas are Hiroshima and Okayama. Together, these two areas have a population of 2.808 million people. The total Urban Employment Area for the whole region is about 3 million people. Hiroshima is a major industrial metropolis with more than one million residents. It is a designated city and was rebuilt after being destroyed by an atomic bomb in 1945. Okayama is also a designated city with a population of 720,000.

Other important core cities include Kurashiki, Fukuyama, Shimonoseki, Kure, Matsue, and Tottori.

Outside of these major cities, the region is very rural and sparsely populated. The population has seen a steady decline since 1992. Some prefectures have actually seen their numbers drop since 1985. The region reached its highest population point in 1991, with roughly 7.8 million people. Traveling through these diverse areas is supported by several airports. Hiroshima Airport is the largest and is located east of Hiroshima. Other smaller airports include Izumo, Tottori, and Yamaguchi Ube.