The Taiheiyō Belt (太平洋ベルト Taiheiyō beruto, lit. "Pacific Belt") also known as Tokaido corridor is the name for the megalopolis in Japan extending from Ibaraki Prefecture in the north all the way to Fukuoka Prefecture in the south, running for almost 1,200 km (750 mi). The urbanization zone runs mainly along the Pacific coast (hence the name) of Japan from Kantō region to Osaka, and the Inland Sea (on both sides) to Fukuoka, and is concentrated along the Tōkaidō-Sanyō rail corridor. A view of Japan at night clearly shows a rather dense and continuous strip of light (that demarcates urban zones) that delineates the region.[1]
Although it contains the majority of Japan's population, references to it in Japanese are mainly economic or regional in nature. The term was first used in 1960 in an Economic Commission Subcommittee Report formed to double the national income. At that time, it was identified as the core of the nation's industrial complex. The region is specifically defined by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry as the following prefectures: Ibaraki, Saitama, Chiba, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Shizuoka, Aichi, Gifu, Mie, Osaka, Hyogo, Wakayama, Okayama, Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Fukuoka, and Oita. As economic development (along with urban development) spilled over to nearby regions, they were added to this list.
The Sea of Japan has a much less well-developed string of cities, called, very pejoratively Ura-nippon (裏日本) (literally: the rear of Japan), stretching 1000 km from Akita to Yamaguchi. It is often referenced in relation to the Taiheiyo belt.
Listed from north to south:
Total population: approx 82.9 million