Everything about Ch Goku Region totally explained
The or is the westernmost region of
Honshū, the largest
island of
Japan. It consists of the prefectures of
Hiroshima,
Yamaguchi,
Shimane,
Tottori, and
Okayama.
History
The name literally means "middle country", a relic of a historical division of Japan into "near countries" (近国
kingoku, but in modern parlance
Kinki), "middle countries" (
chūgoku), and "far countries" (遠国
ongoku), based on distance from the
capital Nara or
Kyoto. Strictly speaking, today's Chūgoku covers only the middle countries to the west of Kyoto, along the
San'indō (山陰道) and
San'yōdō (山陽道) roads.
In
Japanese, the characters 中国 and the reading
Chūgoku are also used to mean "
China" (more precisely, the
People's Republic of China since the
Republic of China is commonly referred to as "
Taiwan" in Japanese). The same
characters are used in
Chinese to refer to China, but pronounced
Zhōngguó lit. "
Middle Kingdom" or "
Middle Country" (
Wade Giles:
Chungkuo).
To avoid confusing "Chūgoku region" with China, the Chūgoku region is also called the "
San'in-San'yō region".
San'in is the northern part facing the
Sea of Japan, which indicates the "shady side of the mountain".
San'yō is the southern part facing the
Inland Sea, which indicates the "sunny side of the mountain". These names originated from the marked differences in
climate.
Outline
The Chūgoku region consists of the following prefectures:
Hiroshima,
Yamaguchi,
Shimane and
Tottori.
Okayama is commonly included, although only
Bitchū Province was considered a Middle Country,
Mimasaka Province and
Bizen Province, the other two components of modern-day Okayama, were considered Near Countries.
The Chūgoku region is characterized by irregular rolling hills and limited plain areas and is divided into two distinct parts by mountains running east and west through its center.
The city of
Hiroshima, the "capital" of the Chūgoku region, was rebuilt after being destroyed by an
atomic bomb in 1945, and is now an industrial metropolis of more than one million people.
Overfishing and
pollution reduced the productivity of the Inland Sea fishing grounds, and the area concentrated on
heavy industry. San'in, however, is less industrialized and relies on
agriculture.
Kyūshū and
Kansai neighbor the Chūgoku region.
Sightseeing
In fiction
Lian Hearn used a
feudal Chūgoku (translated as the
Middle Country) as the setting for her
Tales of the Otori trilogy.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Ch Goku Region'.
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