page_title: Geography of Japan
section_title: Climate
hierarchical_section_title: Geography of Japan / Climate
context_page_description: Japan is an island country comprising a stratovolcanic archipelago over 3,000 km along East Asia's Pacific coast. It consists of 6,852 islands. The 5 main islands are Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku and Okinawa. There are 6,847 remote islands. The Ryukyu Islands and Nanpō Islands are south and east of the main islands.
  The territory covers 377,975.24 km². It is the 4th largest island country in the world and the largest island country in East Asia. The country has the 6th longest coastline at 29,751 km and the 8th largest Exclusive Economic Zone of 4,470,000 km² in the world.
  The terrain is mostly rugged and mountainous with 66% forest. The population is clustered in urban areas on the coast, plains and valleys. Japan is located in the northwestern Ring of Fire on multiple tectonic plates. East of the Japanese archipelago are three oceanic trenches. The Japan Trench is created as the oceanic Pacific Plate subducts beneath the continental Okhotsk Plate. The continuous subduction process causes frequent earthquakes, tsunami and stratovolcanoes. The islands are also affected by typhoons.
context_section_description: Most regions of Japan, such as much of Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, belong to the temperate zone with humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification Cfa) characterized by four distinct seasons. However, its climate varies from cool humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification Dfb) in the north such as northern Hokkaido, to warm tropical rainforest climate (Köppen climate classification Af) in the south such as the Yaeyama Islands and Minami-Tori-shima.
caption: A Köppen climate classification map of Japan