Geography of Japan
Japan is an island nation comprising a stratovolcanic archipelago over along East Asia's Pacific coast. It consists of 6,852 islands. The main islands are Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku and Hokkaido. The Ryukyu Islands and Nanpō Islands are south of the main islands. The territory extends . It is the largest island country in East Asia and fourth largest island country in the world. Japan has the sixth longest coastline and the eight largest Exclusive Economic Zone of in the world.
Water supply and sanitation in Japan
Water use is about 83.5 km3, or 20% of water availability in an average year. However, there are large variations in the utilization rate between years and regions. For example, in the coastal part of the Kantō region that includes Tokyo the utilization rate is over 90% in a dry year. In the relatively dry north of Kyushu it is more than 50%. Of the total use 55.2 km3 was for agriculture, 16.2 km3 for domestic use and 12.1 km3 for industrial use. Despite the introduction of water-saving devices domestic per capita use declined only slightly from 322 liter per capita per day in 2000 to 314 in 2004. Per capita water use thus is slightly lower than in the United States (371 liter in 2005) and more than twice as high as in Germany (122 liter in 2007) or in England (145 liter in 2009).