Yen block

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It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. (Discuss)

The Yen block is a term referring to the closed financial and economic system, created in the 1930s in Northeast Asia. It was based on the Japanese currency, the yen, and was set up as a way to integrate industrial and natural resources of occupied Manchuria (Manchukuo), and then occupied mainland China, into the economy of the Empire of Japan, at that time including present-day Taiwan and Korea.

The final stage of its development produced the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere". Its zone during the Pacific War extended 4,500 miles from the Aleutians, to the Solomon Islands, and 5,000 miles from Wake Island to Burma and the Andaman Islands. With a territorial extent of 3,250,000 square miles, and some 300 million inhabitants during 1941–45, the administrative burden that Japan faced in managing these resources was considerable. Transport to the industrial and commercial centers in the metropolitan island became complicated with naval and land losses from the Battle of Midway and Battle of Guadalcanal battles in the Pacific War.

See also: Eurozone