Do you want to get a basic overview over Japan? Or prepare your friends for their Journey? I made the infographic bellow, providing 13 facts about Japan and its people.
[Edit]: After this infographic was published, it was featured on Imgur and 9gag and has therefore been seen by a lot of people. Some questions were raised out of which I want to answer the most common:
- “That’s not 13 facts!”: 1. People living in Japan, 2. People living in Tokyo, 3. People over 60, 4. Islands, 5. Earthquakes, 6. Volcanoes, 7. Hours of learning, 8. # of writing systems, 9. Size of economy, 10. Export of electronics, 11. Export of cars, 12. Percentage of Shintoists, 13. Percentage of Buddhists
- “So there are no elderly people in Tokyo?”: Of course there are also living people that are 60 years or older in Tokyo. I chose this style to clearly show the size of the Tokyo metropolitan area and the big problem of Japan’s over aging society in comparison to Japan’s total population.
- “2,200 hours of studying – in reality it’s much less.” or “2,200 hours of studying – in reality it’s much more.”: This number was provided by the U.S. Foreign Service Institute (FSI) and refers to the number of classroom hours needed in order to gain “General Professional Proficiency in Speaking (S3) and Reading (R3)”. Hence I used the word studying instead of learning.
- “Romaji is not a Japanese writing system!”: This is of course true. However, Romaji are used in daily Japanese life which makes it a total of four writing systems.
- “Shintoists or non religious – why are they mixed?”: In the Japanese mindset, non-religious (無宗教, mushūkyō) identifies people who do not belong to organized religion, organized in the way Christianity is. However, many Japanese who identify themselves as mushūkyō take part in Shinto rituals, such as praying for their ancestors or visiting shrines. For a more detailed comment, take a look at this note.
[Click on the graphic to enlarge]
