mainland Japan

American  

[meyn-land juh-pan, -luhnd] / ˈmeɪnˌlænd dʒəˈpæn, -lənd /

noun

1. Japan’s four principal islands (Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku), as designated to distinguish them from the thousands of smaller islands of the Japanese archipelago.

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Etymology

Origin of mainland Japan

First recorded in 1800–10

Example Sentences

In the damp shade beneath moss-covered trees, high in the mountains of Taiwan and mainland Japan or deep within the subtropical forests of Okinawa, an unusual organism quietly grows.

From Science Daily

Their findings suggest that the plants may have developed the capacity to produce seeds without fertilization early on, which would have helped them colonize the chain of islands extending from mainland Japan through Okinawa to Taiwan.

From Science Daily

Nature has been able to develop on its own terms here, far from both humans and the warm Kuroshio current, which acts like a shuttle, moving marine species from Taiwan, over the Ryukyu Islands, and up the Pacific coast of mainland Japan.

From Science Daily

Under normal conditions, streaked shearwaters typically fly at speeds of 10-60 km/hr and altitudes below 100 m, and remain at sea; by contrast, tracking data indicated that the bird caught in the storm had attained speeds of 90-170 km/hr, soared to an altitude of 4700 m, and was carried over mainland Japan before the typhoon swung back into the Pacific Ocean.

From Science Daily

This is what piqued plant scientists' curiosity when they discovered Goodyera henryi, an orchid which on mainland Japan is pollinated exclusively by a very specific bumblebee, on remote Japanese Kozu Island where the bumblebee doesn't exist.

From Science Daily