Japan

Japan

Japan (officially Nippon-koku), is made up of over 3000 islands and has been occupied for over 30,000 years. The population is quite homogenous with only small minority groups. Over 99% speak Japanese, a Japonic Group language of unknown origin unrelated to any non-Japonic language. It has over time absorbed a fair amount of words and grammar from Chinese and English though.

The country has maintained isolation for much of its history, but until the 700s its culture was very similar to that of China. In the late 700s and 800s a distinctive Japanese culture first emerged and was greatly refined during the Kamakura Shogunate (1185-1333).
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Š2006 Clove Garden

What we think of as "Japanese Culture" was largely founded during the Kamakura Shogunate (1185-1333). Zen Buddhism was brought from China and adopted by the ruling samurai warrior class in a distinctively Japanese way, coexisting with Shinto, the native religion.

In 1639 Japan closed the country to foreigners and foreign trade, except through a Dutch trading post in Nagasaki. Over 200 years later in 1854 Commodore Matthew Perry, backed by a threatening contingent of U.S. Navy ships, broke the Dutch monopoly. This set the stage for Japanese industrialization and brutal wars of expansion which didn't end until 1945.