what does the japanese call their country?
Japan
entailment
 Japan 's population is estimated at around 127 million , with 80 % of the population living on Honshū . Japanese society is one of the most ethnically , linguistically and culturally homogeneous societies in the world , composed of 98 @.@ 5 % ethnic Japanese , with small populations of foreign workers . Zainichi Koreans , Chinese , Filipinos , Brazilians mostly of Japanese descent , Peruvians mostly of Japanese descent and Americans are among the small minority groups in Japan . In 2003 , there were about 134 @,@ 700 non @-@ Latin American Western ( not including more than 33 @,@ 000 American military personnel and their dependents stationed throughout the country ) and 345 @,@ 500 Latin American expatriates , 274 @,@ 700 of whom were Brazilians ( said to be primarily Japanese descendants , or nikkeijin , along with their spouses ) , the largest community of Westerners . 

entailment
 Japan was introduced to the sport in 1934 by Paul Rusch , a teacher and Christian missionary who helped establish football teams at three universities in Tokyo . Play was halted during World War II , but began to grow in popularity again after the war . As of 2010 , there are more than 400 high school football teams in Japan , with over 15 @,@ 000 participants , and over 100 teams play in the Kantoh Collegiate Football Association ( KCFA ) . The college champion plays the champion of the X @-@ League ( a semi @-@ pro league where teams are financed by corporations ) in the Rice Bowl to determine Japan 's national champion . 

entailment
 The most dominant native ethnic group is the Yamato people ; primary minority groups include the indigenous Ainu and Ryukyuan peoples , as well as social minority groups like the burakumin . There are persons of mixed ancestry incorporated among the Yamato , such as those from Ogasawara Archipelago . In 2014 , foreign @-@ born non @-@ naturalized workers made up only 1 @.@ 5 % of the total population . Japan is widely regarded as ethnically homogeneous , and does not compile ethnicity or race statistics for Japanese nationals ; however , at least one analysis describes Japan as a multiethnic society . Most Japanese continue to see Japan as a monocultural society . Former Japanese Prime Minister and current Finance Minister Tarō Asō described Japan as being a nation of " one race , one civilization , one language and one culture " , which drew criticism from representatives of ethnic minorities such as the Ainu . Unnoficial analysis put the number of mixed race Japanese citizens to be around 0 @.@ 5 % of the population . 

contradiction
 Japan 's sentiment regarding indigenous peoples was crafted around the memory of the Mudan Incident , when , in 1871 , a group of 54 shipwrecked Ryūkyūan sailors was massacred by a Paiwan group from the village of Mudan in southern Taiwan . The resulting Japanese policy , published twenty years before the onset of their rule on Taiwan , cast Taiwanese aborigines as " vicious , violent and cruel " and concluded " this is a pitfall of the world ; we must get rid of them all " ( Kleeman 2003 : 20 – 1 ) . Japanese campaigns to gain aboriginal submission were often brutal , as evidenced in the desire of Japan 's first Governor General , Kabayama Sukenori , to " ... conquer the barbarians " ( Kleeman 2003 : 20 ) . The Seediq Aboriginals fought against the Japanese in multiple battles such as the Xincheng incident ( 新城事件 ) , Truku battle ( 太魯閣之役 ) , 1902 Renzhiguan incident ( 人止關事件 ) , and the 1903 Zimeiyuan incident 姊妹原事件 . In the Wushe Incident of 1930 , for example , a Seediq group was decimated by artillery and supplanted by the Taroko ( Truku ) tribe , which had sustained periods of bombardment from naval ships and airplanes dropping mustard gas . A quarantine was placed around the mountain areas enforced by armed guard stations and electrified fences until the most remote high mountain villages could be relocated closer to administrative control ( Takekoshi 1907 : 210 – 19 ) . 

entailment
 Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period . The first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century CE . Influence from other regions , mainly Imperial China , followed by periods of isolation , particularly from Western Europe , has characterized Japan 's history . From the 12th century until 1868 , Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor . Japan entered into a long period of isolation in the early 17th century , which was ended in 1853 when a United States fleet pressured Japan to open to the West . Nearly two decades of internal conflict and insurrection followed before the Meiji Emperor was restored as head of state in 1868 and the Empire of Japan was proclaimed , with the Emperor as a divine symbol of the nation . In the late 19th and early 20th centuries , victories in the First Sino @-@ Japanese War , the Russo @-@ Japanese War and World War I allowed Japan to expand its empire during a period of increasing militarism . The Second Sino @-@ Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941 , which came to an end in 1945 following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki . Since adopting its revised constitution in 1947 , Japan has maintained a unitary constitutional monarchy with an Emperor and an elected legislature called the National Diet . 
