Coordinates: 35°40′30.6″N 139°44′41.8″E / 35.675167°N 139.744944°E / 35.675167; 139.744944

The House of Representatives (衆議院, Shūgiin^?) is the lower house of the Diet of Japan. The House of Councillors of Japan is the upper house.

The House of Representatives has 480 members, elected for a four-year term. Of these, 180 members are elected from 11 multi-member constituencies by a party-list system of proportional representation, and 300 are elected from single-member constituencies. 241 seats are required for majority.

The overall voting system used to elect the House of Representatives is a parallel system, not a form of proportional representation. Under a parallel system the allocation of list seats does not take into account the outcome in the single seat constituencies. Therefore the overall allocation of seats in the House of Representatives is not proportional, to the advantage of larger parties. In contrast, in bodies such as the German Bundestag the election of single-seat members and party list members is linked, so that the overall result respects proportional representation.

Japan ⁱ/dʒəˈpæn/ (Japanese: 日本 Nihon or Nippon; formally 日本国  Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku, literally the State of Japan) is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters that make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin", which is why Japan is sometimes referred to as the "Land of the Rising Sun".

Japan is an archipelago of 6,852 islands. The four largest islands are Honshū, Hokkaidō, Kyūshū and Shikoku, together accounting for ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area. Japan has the world's tenth-largest population, with over 127 million people. The Greater Tokyo Area, which includes the de facto capital city of Tokyo and several surrounding prefectures, is the largest metropolitan area in the world, with over 30 million residents.

Archaeological research indicates that people lived in Japan as early as the Upper Paleolithic period. The first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other nations followed by long periods of isolation has characterized Japan's history. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, victory 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 parliament called the Diet.

House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national states. In some countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often called a "Senate". In other countries, the House of Representatives is the sole chamber of a unicameral legislature. The functioning of a house of representatives can vary greatly from country to country, and depends on whether a country has a parliamentary or a presidential system. Members of a house of representatives are typically apportioned according to population rather than geography.

"The House of Representatives" is the name of the lower house of the legislature in the following countries:

In the following countries it is the sole chamber in a unicameral system:

In Indonesia, the Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat (DPR) is generally known in English as the "House of Representatives", as is the Dewan Rakyat of the Parliament of Malaysia.

Under apartheid, the House of Representatives was the house for South Africa's mixed race 'Coloured' community, in the Tricameral Parliament of 1984 to 1994.

Taro Kono (河野 太郎, Kōno Tarō^?, born January 10, 1963) is a Japanese politician of the Liberal Democratic Party, a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature). Born in Hiratsuka, Odawara, Kanagawa and graduate of Keio University, he was elected for the first time in 1996. In 2009 he campaigned to be made President of the LDP.[2] His father is Yōhei Kōno, the only president of the Liberal Democratic Party to have not become a Prime Minister of Japan.

Kono was born on the 1st October, 1963, in Hiratsuka, Odawara, as the oldest son of three children.

He is married to Kaori, a returnee from Australia, with a son, Ippei, born in 2002. The two enjoy scuba diving and going to the movies.

Local district Kono 15th district of Kanagawa Prefecture.

Kono was first elected to the House of Representatives of Japan as a Liberal Democratic member in October 1996, at age 33, and was re-elected in June 2000, November 2003 and September 2005.

His winning majority increased from 13,297 in 1996 to 63,058 in 2000, 71,968 in 2003, and 103,280 in 2005. In the 2005 General Election, the total votes Kono received was 186,770, the second largest number in Japan's electoral history; second only to the then Prime Minister Koizumi's in the same election.

Yoshinori Suematsu (末松 義規, Suematsu Yoshinori^?, born December 6, 1956) is a Japanese politician of the Democratic Party of Japan, a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature). A native of Kitakyūshū and graduate of Hitotsubashi University, he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1980, receiving a master's degree from Princeton University while in the ministry. Leaving the ministry in 1994, he was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time in 1996.