Exclusive economic zone of Japan
Japan has the eighth largest Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the world. The total area of Japan is about 377,973.89 km². Japan's EEZ area is vast and the territorial waters (including: the Seto Inland Sea) and EEZ together is about 4.48 million km².
Ragnar Nurkse's balanced growth theory
Nurkse also refuted the claim that if a country's geographical area is large, the size of its market also ought to be large. A country may be extremely small in area but still have a large effective demand. For example, Japan. In contrast, a country may cover a huge geographical area but its market may still be small. This may occur if a large part of the country is uninhabitable, or if the country suffers from low productivity levels and thus has a low National Income.