By Larry Jones Special to the NewsPress
Stillwater NewsPress
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Most people in this country think of Japan as being a very small, crowded country. This is partially, but not totally true. While small compared to the United States, Japan ranks at the 74th percentile in terms of size, meaning it’s larger than almost three-fourths of the countries in the world.
However, with regard to population, it ranks 10th in the world, and combining size and population it is the fourth most densely populated country in the world, with 939 people per square mile.
This too is a bit misleading, however, in that approximately 42 percent of the total population live in the 12 largest cities or metropolitan areas where the population density is about 4,700 hundred people per square mile. So outside those 12 cities, each with a population exceeding 1 million, the population density is quite light and continues to decrease as young people move to the cities.
In large cities, apartment dwellers often live in very small apartments, but in rural areas and in cities the size of Kameoka, many homes have three or more bedrooms.
But almost always homes are multistory; three stories is common. The first floor may have a living room and a multiple-use room that can be used as a bedroom, library, setting room, TV room, etc., and a bathroom and laundry room. The second floor usually has a kitchen, dining room, bedroom and bathroom, and the third floor is usually the master bedroom, closet space and storage space.
The amount of land used is no more than 600 or 700 square feet, while the living space in the house is about three times that.
Larry Jones is a member of the Stillwater Sister Cities Council.
