The Chūgoku region (中国地方, Chūgoku-chihō) or San'in-San'yō region (山陰山陽地方, San'in san'yō-chihō) is the westernmost region of Honshū, the largest island of Japan. It consists of the prefectures of Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Shimane, Tottori, and Okayama.
The name literally means "middle country", a relic of a historical division of Japan into "near countries" (近国 kingoku, but in modern parlance Kinki), "middle countries" (chūgoku), and "far countries" (...
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The Chūgoku region (中国地方, Chūgoku-chihō) or San'in-San'yō region (山陰山陽地方, San'in san'yō-chihō) is the westernmost region of Honshū, the largest island of Japan. It consists of the prefectures of Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Shimane, Tottori, and Okayama.
The name literally means "middle country", a relic of a historical division of Japan into "near countries" (近国 kingoku, but in modern parlance Kinki), "middle countries" (chūgoku), and "far countries" (遠国 ongoku), based on distance from the capital Nara or Kyoto. Strictly speaking, today's Chūgoku covers only the middle countries to the west of Kyoto, along the San'indō (山陰道) and San'yōdō (山陽道) roads.
In Japanese, the characters 中国 and the reading Chūgoku are also used to mean "China". The same characters are used in Chinese to refer to China, but pronounced Zhōngguó lit. "Middle Kingdom" or "Middle Country" (Wade Giles: Chungkuo).
To avoid confusing "Chūgoku region" with China, the Chūgoku region is also called the "San'in-San'yō region"....
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