Why Japan's Geography Is Absolutely Terrible

this is a map of volcanoes in japan and of the 60 active volcanoes you see here you can see that many are close to population centers japan's highest mountain mount fuji for example is a mere 100 kilometers from the tokyo metropolis and is due for an eruption at any time an eruption could mean sending loads of volcanic ash towards tokyo disrupting tokyo's electric and water infrastructure grounding flights to a halt and possibly even costing lives but the volcanic thread is part of a much bigger problem see japan is actually located along the ring of fire an area with a majority of the world's volcanoes and earthquakes i mean i probably don't have to tell you that japan regularly experiences earthquakes but the reason for this is that japan is literally sitting on four individual tectonic plates which is a recipe for disaster so it's no surprise that japan has had some brutal natural disasters like the earthquake and tsunami that hit them in march 2011 which we all know led to tsunami waves flooding the backup generator of a nuclear power plant in fukushima prefecture causing it to fail an emergency that pushed japan to move away from nuclear power at least temporarily as it turns out there was a bit of a problem with abandoning nuclear power altogether which has to do with their incredibly unfortunate geography you see japan has very few energy and mineral natural resources so it has to import most of them this means they're especially reliant on oil and gas imports from other countries for their energy needs so to combat this the government promoted nuclear energy as a way to reduce its reliance on oil imports building over 30 nuclear reactors in the 70s and in 2011 nuclear made up 30 of japan's electricity mix but they stopped their nuclear reactors after the accident since the fukushima disaster japan's energy self-sufficiency has dropped to less than 10 percent as they ultimately decided to put a few reactors back online and the new plan is to increase nuclear power generation to at least 20 percent by 2030. what's amazing though is that considering they have so few natural resources it's impressive how japan has managed to become the world's third largest economy especially considering that after world war ii japan was a war rune country and that they did it with absolutely terrible geography that other countries just don't have to deal with let's look at a map of japan to show you what i mean as you can see japan is split between four main islands and in addition to these there are 6 800 smaller ones which is to say it mildly not ideal because you have to connect all these islands somehow to have a functioning society but it's actually much more complicated than that as almost 70 of japan's land is covered in steep mountainous terrain which leaves little room for the country's 125 million inhabitants who have to crowd into these low-lying tracks of land along the coast the biggest of which is the canto plain where the capital and around 37 million people reside but these mountains also leave little room for agriculture which means japan has to import a lot of its fruit meat and other foods that require a lot of land to produce this is probably why some meat and fruit grown in japan is so goddamn expensive because they're kind of forced to focus a lot more on quality rather than quantity given this shortage of land i guess this is why we have square melons and abnormally large grapes here but anyway japan's incredibly unfortunate geography has had some curious side effects on japan's housing and transportation infrastructure take japanese homes for example naturally japan's hype lighting density means that japanese homes are on the smaller site especially compared to an american mac mansion on average japanese homes are around 93 square meters or about a thousand square feet in size whereas american homes are more than twice as large at 210 square meters or 2260 square feet but that's not even the craziest part you see it turns out japanese homes depreciate in value over time rather significantly in fact this is a result of japan's natural disasters that occur on a pretty regular basis but it's not because the earthquakes or whatever hit the houses it's for a different reason as the government is continuously adding more and more constraints like earthquake resistance standards that keep getting stricter this means that all their houses are continuously deemed less safe so just like a car japanese houses depreciate in value each and every single year except that after about 22 years the value of a japanese home drops to zero now that doesn't mean it's completely worthless as the land does keep its value but it does mean that when you sell your house in japan the new owner will probably knock it down and build something that meets the later standards and the most worrying thing is that besides the risk of earthquakes the japanese have long had to worry about floods as well see japan's steep mountains make rivers of thought easily but populations naturally had to live in flood-prone areas likely due to the landslide risk in mountainous areas and the fact that it's pretty difficult to build houses in mountains which makes the way japan has nearly conquered nature so incredible in 1993 tokyo began building an infrastructure mega project to send overflow from four flock from rivers into the bigger idaho river the system takes up to 200 cubic meters of overflowing water per second through a tunnel 50 meters underground that stretches more than six kilometers it also includes huge cathedral-like storage tanks big enough to fit a space shuttle standing upright it's pretty incredible actually and since it opened in 2006 the system has reduced house flooding by 90 percent and overall flood damage by around 26 billion yen or nearly 211 million dollars but that's not the only ingenious way japan uses infrastructure to fix its geographical problems you see traversing steep mountainous terrain is a time-consuming process in fact in the 1800s traveling around 500 kilometers from tokyo to kyoto took 15 days and today it takes just two and a half hours all thanks to japan's high-speed terrain this encounter in 1964 the cincinnati started operating between tokyo and kyoto ever since then japan has extended this line across the country drilling tunnels through mountain after mountain and today the network has seven full lines totaling nearly 2 800 kilometers connecting almost every big city in the country most interestingly though is that this high-speed rail system is designed to handle the challenges mother nature regularly throws at the country in the event of an earthquake for example the jinkansan trains are equipped with special breaks that trigger automatically as soon as the earthquake detection system detects an earthquake and it's not just the trains that are ready for an earthquake as japan has built a country-wide early warning system that allows the population ahead of an imminent major disaster the jlrd emergency warning system alerts threatened areas in meter seconds via loudspeaker radio tv and even phones this for example is a message sent to a phone to warn about north korean missile launches of all things which brings us to another reason why japan has terrible geography its neighbors obviously living next to a nuclear armed nation that regularly fires missiles into your backyard is not exactly ideal in august 2017 north korea even fired a missile that flew directly over the northern part of japan which you know is not that great but japan doesn't really get along with its other neighbors either i mean it still hasn't signed a peace treaty with russia since the soviet union took over a few small islands at the end of world war ii and when it comes to china it's not looking great either while china has now become japan's top trading partner they constantly argue over territorial claims like these small uninhabited islands which are controlled by japan but claimed by china take a closer look at the map and you'll see these massive gas fields near the islands which might have a thing or two to do with the dispute in any case china sometimes uses geopolitical disputes to punish japan where it hurts natural resources and exports in 2010 the dispute over these islands boiled over and china blocked exports of rare earth materials that china mines 90 of that japan really needs to make electronics and hybrid cars so yeah this isn't a great position to be in for japan but japan's economic dependency on china is just one vulnerability facing them in the future you see japan's population peaked at 128 million in 2010 and had already dropped to 125 million in 2020. we can see this reflected in japan's geography as 13.6 percent of dwellings are vacant and many of them abandoned this shrinking population is already emptying out rural villages and towns however which could disappear entirely by 2040. so while it is very impressive what japan has achieved despite their geographic shortcomings it remains to be seen if it's enough to overcome future challenges like the ones we've discussed in this video but that's it for this video thanks for watching and i'll see you in the next one

Channel: OBF

Views: 348,255

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Id: -jhRr0lzL-o

Length: 9min 12sec (552 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 30 2022