title: Development of Japan’s Territory
abstract: This chapter provides a historical summary of the development of Japan’s territory. In the second half of the nineteenth century, when Western nations pressed Japan to open its doors to trade as a modern State, there was a need to clarify the sovereignty over the surrounding islands. Japan had to delineate the territories between itself and Russia; the United States and the United Kingdom; and China and the Korean Peninsula. In the first half of the twentieth century, Japan expanded its territor