The Chugoku region (中国地方 Chūgoku-chihō) is located within the western region of Honshu, the largest island of Japan.

The name literally means "Middle Country", the sole surviving relic of a historical division of Japan into "Near Countries" (近国 Kingoku), "Middle Countries" and "Far Countries" (遠国 Ongoku), based on distance from the capital Kyoto. Strictly speaking, today's Chugoku covers only the Middle Countries along the San'indo and San'yodo roads. It consists of the following prefectures: Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Shimane, Tottori. Okayama is commonly included, although only Bitchu Province was considered a Middle Country, Mimasaka Province and Bizen Province, the other two components of modern-day Okayama, were considered Near Countries.

In Japanese, the characters 中国 and the reading Chūgoku are also used to mean "China" (more precisely, People's Republic of China since Republic of China is never referred as China but Taiwan in Japan.) The same characters are used in Chinese, but pronounced Zhongguo. However, as the Chugoku region is always referred to with the qualifier "-chihō", there is usually little scope for confusion.

Kyushu region and Kinki region neighbor to Chugoku region.

Sightseeing in Chūgoku

• Hiroshima Prefecture: Hiroshima, Itsukushima Shrine
• Yamaguchi Prefecture: Iwakuni, Hofu, Shimonoseki, Hagi
• Shimane Prefecture: Tsuwano, Izumo, Matsue

See also: Geography of Japan, List of regions in Japan.

External link

• Wikitravel: Chugoku