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.
Geography of Japan
, 46.1% of energy in Japan was produced from petroleum, 21.3% from coal, 21.4% from natural gas, 4.0% from nuclear power and 3.3% from hydropower. Nuclear power is a major domestic source of energy and produced 9.2 percent of Japan's electricity, , down from 24.9 percent the previous year. Following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami disaster in 2011, the nuclear reactors were shut down. Thus Japan's industrial sector became even more dependent than before on imported fossil fuels. By May 2012 all of the country's nuclear power plants were taken offline because of ongoing public opposition following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in March 2011, though government officials continued to try to sway public opinion in favor of returning at least some of Japan's 50 nuclear reactors to service. Shinzo Abe’s government seeks to restart the nuclear power plants that meet strict new safety standards and is emphasizing nuclear energy’s importance as a base-load electricity source. , two reactors at Sendai are likely to restart in early 2015. In August 2015, Japan successfully restarted one nuclear reactor at the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant in Kagoshima prefecture, and several other reactors around the country have since resumed operations. Opposition from local governments has delayed several restarts that remain pending.