Japan’s Peninsulas

Geography and cartography is one theme at ComingAnarchy.com, where I regularly create and post maps of areas of the world when I can find no suitable version on the world wide web. Recent examples include the political geography of the Russian Revolution and the Soviet Breakup, the modern constituent kingdoms of Uganda, and maps of one day states, among others.

Having traveled across much of Japan and discovered minor peninsulas that don’t appear on major maps, I went searching for a map of Japan’s peninsulas but found none. So, I made my own — it’s not exhaustive, but it does include all major peninsulas, and as many minor peninsulas that I could incorporate into the map under the current narrow graphical specifications. Please note that academic and practicing geography experts disagree with the categorization of “peninsula” for some of the minor peninsulas labeled on this map. (The enlarged map is .png file, and can be easily edited if someone wants to further contribute to the map, correct inaccuracies, or amend to upload to wikipedia.)

Japan Peninsula Map Thumb
Click to enlarge

Think you know Japan’s peninsulas like a real expert? Then take the Yahoo! games 日本半島検定 exam, in which you take 8 questions to test your mettle! All the information required to pass is contained in the picture above.

12 thoughts on “Japan’s Peninsulas”

  1. One pretty obvious omission here — the Shimokita Peninsula, which we both crossed by hitchhiking. But nice map!

  2. Cool this is awesome.

    I think it’s interesting that while Japan has so many peninsulas of its own, in some circles (2ch) the word “hantou” is synonymous with the Korean peninsula. Just shows they must not be patriotic enough to properly recognize their own geography!

  3. 半島人 is the term used to refer Koreans before 1941.(The Japanese,内地人)So 2ch crowd are not that wrong.

    One point.渥美半島 isn’t Amami Hantou,it should be “Atsumi”

  4. Great job.

    Just one nitpick – there are two Kunisaki Peninsulas in Kyushu. 国崎 is in Nagasaki-ken, the one in Oita-ken that you have written with those characters should be 国東.

  5. Missed the Tango Peninsula as well…. first thing I noticed. And it is the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa, not “Noda”.

  6. Great work. It even includes a peninsula in the Lake Biwa!

    I have an additional nitpick. The peninsula labeled as Kunisaki Peninsula in the map is not Kunisaki Peninsula but Saga-no-Seki Peninsula (佐賀関半島). The Kunisaki Peninsula (国東半島) is the round-shaped bulge to the north of the Saga-no-Seki Peninsula.

  7. Actually, no. I just checked, and it turns out that Noman is not a peninsula.

    Noman is an island.

    (sorry, had to do it.)

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