Industrial Development Case Studies of Japan and China
Senior 3 · Geography
Industrial Development Case Studies of Japan and China
Lesson 1 of 5
30 min
Let's begin
Many of the cars, motorcycles and minibuses on Rwanda's roads were made in Japan, often by Toyota, whose home is Toyota City near Nagoya. Japan has almost no iron ore, little coal and hardly any oil, and three-quarters of its land is mountainous. Yet in 2025 it built 8.41 million motor vehicles (Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, JAMA) and made 80.7 million tonnes of crude steel (World Steel Association, 2026). Where are Japan's factories, and what do they make?
Definition
Industry: the processing of raw materials into finished goods (manufacturing), and more widely any branch of economic activity. Industrial region: an area where many factories and related services are concentrated. Heavy industry: industry that uses large amounts of bulky raw materials and makes heavy products, such as steel, ships and chemicals. Light industry: industry that makes smaller, lighter goods, such as electronics, clothing and food.
| Feature | Japan |
|---|---|
| Location | An archipelago in East Asia, between the Sea of Japan and the Pacific Ocean, east of China and Korea |
| Islands | Four main islands (Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu) and thousands of smaller ones |
| Area | About 378,000 km², about 14 times the size of Rwanda |
| Population | About 124 million (Statistics Bureau of Japan, 2024), and falling |
| Capital | Tokyo |
| Relief | About three-quarters mountainous, with active volcanoes; flat land only on small coastal plains, where most people and industry are found |
| Climate | Cool temperate in the north to subtropical in the south; monsoon rains and typhoons |
| Resources | Very few minerals; short, fast rivers for hydro-electric power; forests; rich fishing grounds |
Most of Japan's industry lies in a narrow coastal strip called the Pacific Belt, from Tokyo Bay to northern Kyushu. Here are the flat land, the deep harbours and the big cities.
| Region | Main cities | Main industries |
|---|---|---|
| Keihin (with Keiyo) | Tokyo, Yokohama, Kawasaki, Chiba | Steel, petrochemicals, cars, electronics, printing and publishing, shipbuilding; Japan's largest market and head offices |
| Chukyo | Nagoya, Toyota City | Motor vehicles (Toyota), aircraft parts, machinery, ceramics, textiles |
| Hanshin | Osaka, Kobe | Steel, shipbuilding, chemicals, electrical goods, textiles |
| Tokai | Shizuoka, Hamamatsu | Motorcycles and musical instruments (Yamaha, Suzuki), paper |
| Setouchi (Inland Sea) | Hiroshima, Okayama, Kurashiki | Cars (Mazda), shipbuilding, oil refining, petrochemicals, steel |
| Kitakyushu | Kitakyushu, Fukuoka | Steel (Japan's first modern steelworks opened at Yawata in 1901), chemicals, cars |
Worked example
Worked example 1: output per person. Japan made 8.41 million vehicles in 2025 and has about 124 million people. About how many vehicles were made per 1,000 people?
8,410,000 ÷ 124,000,000 × 1,000 ≈ 68 vehicles per 1,000 people. Japan exports about half of them, so the industry depends on world markets.
Worked example
Worked example 2: classifying industries. Sort these into heavy and light industries: steel, cameras, shipbuilding, textiles, petrochemicals, musical instruments.
Heavy: steel, shipbuilding, petrochemicals (bulky raw materials, large plants, usually on the coast). Light: cameras, textiles, musical instruments (small, light, high-value products that can be made inland).
Warning
Do not place Japan's industry evenly over the country. It is concentrated on the coastal plains of the Pacific Belt; the mountainous interior and the Sea of Japan coast have far less.
Geography by Geoff: why most of Japan's population lives in and around Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. As you watch, link each city to the industrial region it belongs to in Figure 1.
Practice
Sources and credits
This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
