The Empire of Shin-Hachioji

(in-progress)

Shin-Hachioji (Japanese: 新八王子 Shin-Hachiōji; formally 新八王子帝国 Shin-Hachiōji Teikoku, meaning "Empire of Shin-Hachioji") is a sovereign island nation in East Asia. Located in the North Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asian mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the southwest.

The Japanese stratovolcanic archipelago consists of about 8,061 islands. The six largest are Higashihonshu, Hokkaido, Nishihonshu, Kyushu, Shikoku, and Oshima, which make up about ninety-six percent of Shin-Hachioji's land area and often are referred to as home islands. The country is divided into 40 prefectures in eight regions; Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one. The population of 254 million is the world's ninth largest. Japanese people make up 96.7% of Shin-Hachioji's total population. Approximately 80.2 million people live in the city of Hachioji, the capital of Shin-Hachioji.

Archaeological research indicates that the Japanese archipelago was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period. The first written mention of Shin-Hachioji is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, particularly from Western Europe, has characterized Shin-Hachioji's history. From the 12th century until 1868, the Japanese were ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor.

Shin-Hachioji entered into a long period of isolation in the early 17th century, which was ended in 1853 when a United States fleet pressured Shin-Hachioji to open to the West. After nearly two decades of internal conflict and insurrection, the Imperial Court regained its political power in 1868 through the help of several clans from Chōshū and Satsuma, and the Empire of Japan was established. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, victories in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War and World War I allowed Japan to expand its empire during a period of increasing militarism.

The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Japanese surrender. A revised constitution adopted on May 3, 1947, led to the formation of a unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy with an Emperor and an elected legislature called the National Diet.

Following a rapid increase of sea-level due to climate change in the 21st century, coastal plains including the Osaka Plain, the Nobi Plain, and a large portion of the Kanto Plain were submerged in the Pacific Ocean. Major population centers including the former capital of Tokyo had to be evacuated, and due to a lack of resources, at least 75 million people perished, fourth only to China, Bangladesh, and India. A period of civil unrest occurred, ending with the establishment of a new government centered in the city of Shin-Hachioji and the adoption of a rewritten constitution on April 30, 2069.

Shin-Hachioji is a member of the World Assembly and is considered a great power. The country has the world's seventh-largest economy by nominal GDP and the world's sixth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. The country benefits from a highly skilled workforce and is among the most highly educated countries in the world, with one of the highest percentages of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree.

Japanese have a high standard of living and the country ranks highly in some metrics of national performance, including education, health care, protection of civil liberties, democratic governance, prosperity and human development. The country ranks as having the world's sixth-highest social mobility, a high level of income equality, one of the lowest perceived level of corruption in the world, and one of the world's highest personal income tax rates.

Etymology

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Shin-Hachioji is named after the city of Hachioji, the location where the Hachioji Constitution was drafted and signed. The Japanese word for Hachioji is 八王子, and literally means "eight princes." The term refers to the eight princes whom accompanied Gozu Tennō (牛頭天王) in legend. The character shin (新) means "new."

Prior to the adoption of Shin-Hachioji, other terms such as "Nihon" (日本), "Yamato" (大和, or Great Wa), and "Wakoku" (倭国) were used. The term Wa (和) is a homophone of Wo 倭 (pronounced Wa by the Japanese), which has been used by the Chinese as a designation for the Japanese as early as the third century Three Kingdoms period. However, the Japanese disliked some connotation of Wa 倭 (which has been associated in China with concepts like "dwarf" or "pygmy"), and it was therefore replaced with the substitute character Wa (和), meaning "togetherness, harmony." The term Nihon literally means "the origin of the sun". The character nichi (日) means "sun" or "day"; hon (本) means "base" or "origin". The compound therefore means "origin of the sun", and is the source of the popular Western epithet "Land of the Rising Sun".

The earliest record of the name "Nihon" appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, the Old Book of Tang. At the end of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan requested that Nihon be used as the name of their country. This name may have its origin in a letter sent in 607 and recorded in the official history of the Sui dynasty. Prince Shōtoku, the Regent of Japan, sent a mission to China with a letter in which he called himself 'the Emperor of the Land where the Sun rises' (日出處天子). The message said: "Here I the emperor of the country where the sun rises send a letter to the emperor of the country where the sun sets. How are you."

Today, the name Shin-Hachiōji Teikoku (新八王子帝国) is used formally, meaning "the Empire of Shin-Hachioji"; countries whose long form does not contain a descriptive designation are generally given a name appended by the character koku (国), meaning "country", "nation" or "state".

History

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Prehistory and ancient history
Feudal era
Modern era

Geography

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Climate
Biodiversity
Environment

Politics

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Government

Administrative divisions

Shin-Hachioji consists of 40 prefectures, each overseen by an elected governor, legislature and administrative bureaucracy. Each prefecture is further divided into cities, towns and villages.

Foreign relations

Shin-Hachioji has diplomatic relations with nearly all independent nations and has been an active member of the World Assembly since June 2069. It is the world's largest donor of official development assistance, donating US$318.4 billion in 2082.

Shin-Hachioji has close ties to Hudson valley. Since World War II, the two countries have maintained close economic and defense relations. Hudson valley is a major market for Japanese exports and the primary source of Japanese imports. note 1

Various territorial disputes exist between Shin-Hachioji and its neighboring nations; the Far Eastern Republic contests control of the Southern Kuril Islands (including Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan, and the Habomai group) which were occupied by the Soviet Union in 1945. Korea's assertions concerning Liancourt Rocks (Japanese: "Takeshima", Korean: "Dokdo") are acknowledged, but not accepted by Japan. Japan has strained relations with the Republic of China over the Senkaku Islands.

Demographics

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Population

Rank	Name	Population	Prefecture	Rank	Name	Population	Prefecture
1	Hachioji	80,238,643	Hachioji	11	Asahikawa	2,859,891	Hokkaido
2	Kobe	16,108,699	Hyogo	12	Gifu	2,821,534	Gifu
3	Sagamihara	11,727,953	Hachioji	13	Nagano	2,792,309	Nagano
4	Kagoshima	8,293,820	Kagoshima	14	Shizuoka	2,788,430	Shizuoka
5	Fukushima	7,158,017	Fukushima	15	Utsunomiya	2,585,508	Tochigi
6	Maebashi	5,743,156	Gunma	16	Yamagata	2,579,651	Yamagata
7	Kyoto	3,717,257	Hyogo	17	Toyota	2,372,084	Aichi
8	Tokorozawa	3,693,961	Saitama	18	Nara	2,369,369	Nara
9	Morioka	3,532,757	Iwate	19	Kumamoto	2,341,594	Kumamoto
10	Takasaki	2,926,327	Gunma	20	Matsumoto	2,255,536	Nagano

Notes

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^ Hudson valley is my other nation.