What is the largest Japanese island?

Honshu is the largest and most populous island of Japan, located south of Hokkaido across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyushu across the Kanmon Straits. The island separates the Sea of Japan, which lies to its north and west, from the North Pacific Ocean to its south and east. It is the seventh-largest island in the world, and the second-most populous after the Indonesian island of Java.

The island is roughly 1,300 km (810 mi) long and ranges from 50 to 230 km (31 to 143 mi) wide, and its total area is 225,800 km2 (87,200 sq mi), 60% of the total area of Japan, making it slightly larger than Great Britain. Its land area has been increasing with land reclamation and coastal uplift in the north, but global sea level rise has diminished these effects. Honshu has 5,450 kilometers (3,386 mi) of coastline.

Honshu had a population of 103 million as of 2005, mostly concentrated in the coastal lowlands, notably in the Kantō plain where 25% of the total population resides in the Greater Tokyo Area. As the historical center of Japanese culture and political power,  the island includes several past Japanese capitals, including Kyoto, Nara, and Kamakura.