By far the largest and most important flat area in Japan is the 5,000-square-mile (13,000-square-kilometer) Kanto Plain on the east coast of Honshu. It is both a major agricultural region and Japan's most important industrial and urban center.

None of the populated plains or mountain basins is extensive in area. The largest, the Kanto Plain, where Tokyo is situated, covers only 13,000 square kilometers.

The Kanto ("east of the barrier") region encompasses seven prefectures around Tokyo on the Kanto Plain. The plain itself, however, makes up only slighdy more than 40 percent of the region. The rest consists of the hills and mountains that border it except on the seaward side.

South of Tohoku on Honshu island is the Kanto region, the political, cultural, and economic heart of Japan. It centers on Japan's capital city, Tokyo, in east central Honshu. Kanto's main natural feature is the Kanto Plain. Japan's largest flatland, the plain covers 13,000 sq km (5,000 sq mi), or about 40 percent of the Kanto region. Hills and mountains surround the plain on the east, north, and west sides, while the south side opens to the Pacific Ocean. Covering most of the southern part of the plain is the Tokyo metropolitan area, which contains many small cities and satellite towns. Major nearby cities—Yokohama, Chiba, and Kawasaki—merge with Tokyo, creating one large urban-industrial zone. The population of Kanto is the largest of any of Japan's regions. Most of the farms that once covered the Kanto Plain have been replaced by residential, commercial, and industrial construction. The prefectures of Kanagawa, Saitama, Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Chiba, and the Tokyo Metropolis make up the Kanto region.

Japan has more than 40 active volcanoes, and the country experiences an average of more than 1,000 seismic events (earthquakes and tremors) a year. The most disastrous earthquake of modern times hit the Tokyo/Yokohama area in 1923, killing an estimated 140,000. The worst earthquake since the 1923 disaster devastated the Kôbe area in 1995, killing more than 6,000.
The mountainous origins of the archipelago makes flat areas rare. There are only five major plains, and none are very large. The Kantô Plain, by far the nation’s largest, with an area of 8,078 square mi (13,000 square km), extends inland from TOKYO.

Japan's largest lowland area, the Kanto Plain, lies east of Fuji covering some 13,000 sq km (5,000 sq mi). The capital, Tokyo, stands on its southern side, on Tokyo Bay.

Even the largest of these lowlands, the Kanto Plain, covers only 5,020 square miles (13,000 sq km).

Düzənliklər və ovalıqlar ərazisinin 1/4 hissəsini əhatə edir. Bunlar dəniz sahili ensiz zolaqda və daxili rayonlarda çay vadilərini əhatə edir. Bunlardan ən böyüyü Honsü adasının Tokio körfəzi sahilində Kanto və ya Tokio (17 min kv. km) düzənliyidir.

西南日本の山系と東北日本の山系の交会部に位置する日本最大の平野。東西約140km，南北約110km。

Although the country is exceptionally well watered, the absence of large plains has prevented the formation of a major river system. The longest river, the Shinano, is only 367 kilometers (228 miles) long and the second longest is the Tone, 322 kilometers (200 miles). Both are in central Honshu. The third longest is Hokkaido’s Ishikari River (268 kilometers/166 miles).

Japan has a long history of seismic assaults. One of the most significant recent events took place on January 17, 1995, when a devastating earthquake released the tension that had built up on a transverse fault near historic Kobe, a port city of 1.5 million people. The Japanese soon labeled the 6.9-magnitude episode the Great Hanshin Earthquake, establishing its place in the annals of Japanese disasters alongside such events as the Great Kanto Earthquake (magnitude 7.9 on the Richter scale, which killed 143,000 people in and around Tokyo in 1923.

Major earthquakes are rarer but can result in thousands of deaths, as with the Kanto earthquake of 1923, in which 130,000 people were killed.