Thailand and Japan

Refer to Map 2 to see a map of Thailand.
             Physical Geography.
             1.1 Landforms.
             Japan is located off the east Asian coast in the North Pacific, it consists of 4 main islands and more than 3000 small islands. The names of the 4 main islands are Honshu (231,073 km), Hokkaido (83,519 km), Kyushu (42,150 km) and Shikoku (18,800 km) respectively. Japan is a very mountainous volcanic country. From north to south, Japan is traversed by a range of mountains, which are often above 2000 metres high, which are surrounded by fertile coastal plains. Mt Fuji rises 3,776 metres above sea level, it is Japans highest peak and enclosed by a low-lying coastal belt. It also encloses the Hioa alps and the Chugoku mountains on Honshu. From south-western Honshu, across Shikoku and Kyushu, a complex of lava peaks and undulating uplands stretch all the way down to the volcanic Ryukyu archipelago which includes Okinawa. Drainage basins in Japan tend to be small: the five largest rivers are the Tone, the Ishikari, the Kitami, the Kiso and the Shinano. 11% of Japan's is arable and over two thirds (68%) is forested or woodlands.
             Thailand on the other hand is located in the west of the South-East Asian Indochinese Peninsula. Thailand contains a total area of 514,000 km2, which is divide into 73 provinces. Geographically Thailand is divided into 4 regions. To the north, a complex system of forested mountain ranges divided by the precipitous but fertile Ping, Yom, Wang and Nan river valleys, rises to a elevation of 2,594 metres at Doi Inthanon. To the northeast is the sparsely vegetated and largely infertile Khorat Plateau (average 300m elevation). In the heartland of the country are central plains support the bulk of the population and sustain the greater part of the country's agricultural and industrial growth. This fertile terrain consists largely of the Chao Phraya Delta flood plain. The mountainous southern provinces, situated on the northern half of the Malay Peninsula, are dominated by dense tropical rainforest and bordered by mangrove-forested islands off the coast.