Taiheiyo Belt
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The Taiheiyo Belt(太平洋ベルト） (Japanese: Pacific Belt) is the name for the continuous urbanization (aka megalopolis) in Japan extending from Tochigi Prefecture in the north all the way to Fukuoka Prefecture in the south, running for almost 1,200 km. The urbanization runs mainly along the Pacific coast of Japan (hence the name) and is concentrated along the Tōkaidō-Sanyō rail corridor. Although it contains the majority of Japan's population, references to it in Japanese are mainly economic in nature. The Sea of Japan has a line of cities named UraNippon(裏日本), stretching from Akita to Yamaguchi, which are a potential megalopolis, but have much fewer people.
[edit] Major Cities
(North to South)
- Greater Utsunomiya (pop 900,000) including Nikkō, Kanuma, Tochigi, Oyama, Shimotsuke.
- Greater Maebashi (pop 1,500,000) including Takasaki, Kiryu, Isesaki, Ota, Ashikaga, Sano, and Tatebayashi.
- Greater Ibaraki (pop 1,300,000) including Mito, Tsuchiura, Hitachinaka, Hitachi, Tsukuba.
- Greater Tokyo (pop 35.5 million)
- Greater Shizuoka (pop 1,000,000)
- Toyohashi (pop 400,000)
- Greater Nagoya (Chūkyō Metropolitan Area) (pop 8,000,000)
- Greater Osaka (pop 17,000,000) including Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, Sakai, and Higashiosaka
- Greater Nara (pop 1,000,000)
- Himeji (pop 500,000)
- Tokushima (pop 300,000)
- Greater Okayama (pop 1,900,000) including Okayama, Kurashiki, Takamatsu, Marugame, Sakaide, Tamano, Soja.
- Fukuyama-Kure (pop 1,100,000) including Onomichi, Mihara, Higashi Hiroshima.
- Greater Hiroshima (pop 1,300,000) including Hatsukaichi.
- Greater Matsuyama (pop 1,050,000) including Imabari, Saijo, Niihama, Shikokuchuo.
- Kanmon Straits (pop 1,700,000) including Shimonoseki and Kitakyushu including Iizaka.
- Kurume (pop 300,000)
- Greater Kumamoto (熊本都市圏) (pop 1,000,000)
- Sasebo (pop 200,000)
Total: 82.9 million
[edit] External links
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