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.
Everything's neat and compact
There's not much to shout about
But winter is breaking inside of me
Now life is so incomplete
But you're one of the boys again
But is that all you want to be?
Now that you feel the weather
Was it all in vain?
Now that we're together
We seem so alien
Slowly descend from heaven
Anyway we turn we win
But how can you always be so sure?
Nightporters sleep on weekdays
Living a lifetime too
Walking away without a cure
Now that you feel the weather
Was it all in vain?
Now that we're together
We seem so alien
The noise on the stairs disturbs me
Somebody walks my way
But can you rely on everything I feel?
Driving through endless buildings
The desert is so serene
But Mondays were never really my ideal
Now that you feel the weather
Was it all in vain?
Now that we're together