The inevitable process of urban centralization, which has become so evident in recent years is, comparatively speaking, not so pronounced in Japan as in some countries of Europe. One reason is that the population of Japan, principally agricultural, is dispersed all over the land in well-proportioned numbers, and each district with a radius of 10 or 20 miles, is sure to have an urban center of some pretension, so that the rural populations everywhere have little reason to miss city atmosphere. The trouble in Japan, if it is a trouble at all, is in the urbanization of rural districts rather than in the urban centralization of rural populations.
Kyoto: Small Street in the Restaurant and Bar Quarter Photographic Print
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One of the first geographical phrases our schoolboy learns is the "santo" (the three capital cities), namely, Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto. After these are pointed out the four interesting cities: Nagoya, Kobe, Yokohama, Nara, each of the latter not only being a notable modern city but having a character of its own, worth describing, as has already been done. There are other fine cities, following close upon the heels of the big seven. Some of them are hardly worthy of mention in a book like this, such, for example, as Yawata and Omuta of Kyūshū, which have attained the city status because of their coalmine and iron-works populations respectively. But there are others which either in age, in historic associations, or in natural beauty, justly rank with the big seven, but we have space to mention only their names, with their respective areas. They are:
Hiroshima (Area 26.9 sq. miles)
Fukuoka (Area 34.1 sq. miles)
Hakodate (Area 7.3 sq. miles)
Kure (Area 18.6 sq. miles)
Sendai (Area 33.8 sq. miles)
Sapporo (Area 9.3 sq. miles)
Kumamoto (Area 17.5 sq. miles)
Kanazawa (Area 7.0 sq. miles)
Otaru (Area 21.9 sq. miles)
Okayama (Area 18.3 sq. miles)
Kagoshima (Area 5.9 sq. miles)
Shizuoka (Area 23.3 sq. miles)
Saseho (Area 19.2 sq. miles)
Niigata (Area 7.8 sq. miles)
Sakai (Area 5.6 sq. miles)
Wakayama (Area 12.5 sq. miles)
Yokosuka (Area 13.2 sq. miles)
Hamamatsu (Area 5.9 sq. miles)
Moji (Area 16.0 sq. miles)
Shimonoseki (Area 6.0 sq. miles)
