Archipelago off the eastern coast of Asia. The four biggest islands are Honshu (where Tokyo is), Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku. Fairly crowded due to its mountainous terrain and need to use as much arable land as possible for agriculture to feed its large population. The CIA World Factbook says Japan is slightly smaller than California and has a population of 126,182,077 as of July 1999. California has only 32,667,000 people as of 1997 (this last from a study at http://www.investorshq.com/pattison/files/calgen/capopulation.htm).