Kanto

Kanto occupies the south-eastern bulge of Honshu, facing the Pacific and wrapping around Tokyo Bay. Its seven prefectures fall into two groups: the inland north – Ibaraki, Tochigi and Gunma – and the metropolitan south – Saitama, Chiba, Tokyo and Kanagawa – whose built-up areas have grown together into the largest urban agglomeration in the world by most measures.

Since Tokugawa Ieyasu made Edo his base in 1590, the region has been the seat of real power in Japan, and since 1868 also the seat of the emperor and the national government. Ministries, the head offices of most large companies, the main universities, publishers and broadcasters are concentrated here, and the region accounts for a disproportionate share of the national economy.

Beyond the capital, Kanto offers some of Japan's most visited landscapes and monuments within a short train ride: the shrines and waterfalls of Nikko, the medieval temples of Kamakura, the hot springs and lakes of Hakone with views of Mount Fuji, the silk heritage of Gunma, the mountain valleys of Chichibu and the subtropical Ogasawara Islands, which administratively belong to Tokyo.

The Kanto Plain (Kantō-heiya), about 17,000 km², forms the heart of the region. It is drained by the Tone River, whose course was diverted eastward to the Pacific in the Edo period, and by the Ara, Tama and Sagami rivers, which flow into Tokyo Bay and Sagami Bay. Thick layers of volcanic ash, the Kanto loam, cover its terraces.

Mountains enclose the plain on three sides: the volcanic highlands of Nikko, Nasu and Oze in the north, the Mikuni Mountains on the Niigata border with Tanigawa-dake, Asama and the Joshinetsu highlands to the north-west, and the Chichibu and Tanzawa ranges to the west, beyond which Mount Fuji rises. To the east lie Lake Kasumigaura, Japan's second-largest lake, and the Boso Peninsula; to the south the Miura Peninsula and Sagami Bay. Tokyo's jurisdiction extends some 1,000 km into the Pacific through the Izu and Ogasawara island chains.

The region has a humid subtropical climate. Summers are hot and humid, with a rainy season (tsuyu) from early June to mid-July and typhoons in late summer and autumn. Winters on the plain are dry, sunny and cold, shaped by the karakkaze (dry wind) blowing down from the mountains of Gunma and Tochigi after the monsoon has dropped its snow on the Sea of Japan side. Heavy snow falls only in the northern mountains, around Minakami, Oze and Okunikko. The coastal south – Boso, Miura and Shonan – is mild in winter, while the inland basins of northern Saitama and Gunma record some of Japan's highest summer temperatures.

The plain was densely settled in the Jomon period, as shell mounds around Tokyo Bay show, and is rich in kofun (burial mounds), notably in Gunma and at Sakitama in Saitama. Under the ritsuryō system of the seventh and eighth centuries it was divided into the provinces of Musashi, Sagami, Kazusa, Shimosa, Awa, Hitachi, Kozuke and Shimotsuke, and the name Kanto – 'east of the barrier' – referred to the lands beyond the checkpoints guarding the capital region.

The warrior class grew strong in the east. Taira no Masakado rebelled here in 939, and in 1192 Minamoto no Yoritomo established the first shogunate at Kamakura. After the Hojo of Odawara fell in 1590, Tokugawa Ieyasu received the Kanto provinces and built Edo into the capital of a shogunate that ruled Japan until 1867. Edo became one of the largest cities in the world by the eighteenth century.

In 1868 the emperor moved to Edo, renamed Tokyo, and Yokohama – opened as a treaty port in 1859 – became the gateway for foreign trade and technology. The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 and the air raids of 1945 destroyed much of Tokyo and Yokohama, yet both were rebuilt. The 1964 Olympics, the Tokaido Shinkansen, Narita Airport and the sprawl of commuter suburbs shaped the modern capital region.

Kanto culture is in large part the culture of Edo: kabuki, ukiyo-e prints, rakugo storytelling, sumo and the festivals of the old merchant quarters, such as the Sanja Matsuri in Asakusa and the Kanda Matsuri. The standard Japanese language taught nationwide is based on the speech of Tokyo's educated classes.

Outside the capital, older traditions persist in shrine and temple towns such as Nikko, Kamakura, Narita and Chichibu, and in crafts such as Yuki silk, Mashiko pottery and Kiryu weaving. The region is also the country's centre of modern culture – of publishing, anime, fashion, design and contemporary architecture.