Japan is a very old and intricate nation. In this paper I will not even begin to scratch the surface when it comes to talking about the Japanese expansive history but I am hoping to give a little insight into their past.
According to the U.S. Department of State the population of Japan in 2001 was 126.8 million and the population growth rate was 0.18%. For some reason I was unable to get a current population size but I did however find a projected size for 2003, which was 1 million people greater than in 2001. It is hard to imagine a population of that size living in an area smaller than California, with California's population about 33.9 million people. It is amazing that Japan can harbor almost four times the amount of people of California and still manage as well as they do.
Politics have changed greatly in Japan's long history. When a nation is as old as Japan (around 600 BCE) it has to go through many changes, a flux if you will, over time until hopefully issues have worked themselves out and a stable and just government arises. In the early fifth century the Japanese courts adopted the Chinese righting system. A few centuries" later and Buddhism showed its head and this started the long influence of Chinese culture on Japan until the middle of the nineteenth century. During this period there were emperors but the main power of government and enforcing lied with "shoguns" or military governors.
Contact with the west started in the middle 1500's and went on for 150 years until Japan closed its doors to the world. The shogunate feared that Europe was going to try and take over Japan so they kicked out all foreigners and refused trade with anyone except the Dutch and the Chinese - under close supervision mind you. After 200 years of isolation it took the Convention of Kanagawa For Japan to open its doors. Once the floodgates were open it was only a matter of a decade or so until the shogunate resigned power back to the emperor.