Honshu, historically called Hondo, is the largest and most populous main island of Japan. It is located south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyūshū across the Kanmon Straits. The island separates the Sea of Japan, which lies to its north and west, from the North Pacific Ocean to the south and east. It is the 7th largest island in the world, and the 2nd most populous after the Indonesian island of Java.
The Akashi Kaikyō Bridge is a suspension bridge, which links the city of Kobe on the Japanese mainland of Honshu to Iwaya on Awaji Island. It crosses the busy Akashi Strait as part of the Honshu–Shikoku Highway. It was completed in 1998, and has the longest central span of any suspension bridge in the world, at 1,991 metres. It is one of the key links of the Honshū–Shikoku Bridge Project, which created three routes across the Inland Sea.
Tokushima Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Shikoku. Tokushima Prefecture has a population of 728,633 and has a geographic area of 4,146 km². Tokushima Prefecture borders Kagawa Prefecture to the north, Ehime Prefecture to the west, and Kōchi Prefecture to the southwest.
The Great Hanshin earthquake, or Kobe earthquake, occurred on January 17, 1995 at 05:46:53 JST in the southern part of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, including the region known as Hanshin. It measured 6.9 on the moment magnitude scale and had a maximum intensity of 7 on the JMA Seismic Intensity Scale. The tremors lasted for approximately 20 seconds. The focus of the earthquake was located 17 km beneath its epicenter, on the northern end of Awaji Island, 20 km away from the center of the city of Kobe.
Akashi is a city located in southern Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, on the Seto Inland Sea west of Kobe.
The Seto Inland Sea, sometimes shortened to the Inland Sea, is the body of water separating Honshū, Shikoku, and Kyūshū, three of the four main islands of Japan. It serves as a waterway connecting the Pacific Ocean to the Sea of Japan. It connects to Osaka Bay and provides a sea transport link to industrial centers in the Kansai region, including Osaka and Kobe. Before the construction of the San'yō Main Line, it was the main transportation link between Kansai and Kyūshū.
Awaji Province was an old province of Japan covering Awaji Island, between Honshū and Shikoku. Today it is part of Hyōgo Prefecture. It is sometimes called Tanshu (淡州). Awaji is divided into three municipal sections: Awaji is the northernmost section, Sumoto is the most urban and central section, and four southern towns make up the city of Minamiawaji.
The Honshu-Shikoku Bridge Project is a system of bridges connecting the islands of Honshu and Shikoku across the Inland Sea of Japan, which were previously only connected by ferry. It consists of three major connections. All bridges are now controlled by the Honshu-Shikoku Bridge Expressway Company and the Japan Expressway Holding and Debt Repayment Agency (日本高速道路保有・債務返済機構). The system consists of three expressways and their respective bridge systems.
Awaji is a city located on Awaji Island in Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. The modern city of Awaji was established on April 1, 2005, from the merger of the former town of Awaji, absorbing the towns of Tsuna, Higashiura, Hokudan and Ichinomiya. As of April 1, 2017, the city has an estimated population of 43,110 and a population density of 230 persons per km². The total area is 184.05 km².
The Naruto whirlpools are tidal whirlpools in the Naruto Strait, a channel between Naruto in Tokushima and Awaji Island in Hyōgo, Japan. The strait between Naruto and Awaji island has a width of about 1.3 km. The strait is one of the connections between the Pacific Ocean and the Inland Sea, a body of water separating Honshū and Shikoku, two of the main islands of Japan. The tide moves large amounts of water into the Inland Sea twice a day and also removes large amounts of water twice a day. With a range of up to 1.7 m (5.6 ft), the tide creates a difference in the water level of up to 1.5 m between the Inland Sea and the Pacific. Due to the narrowness of the strait, the water rushes through the Naruto channel at a speed of about 13–15 km/h (8–9 mph) four times a day, twice flowing in and twice flowing out. During a spring tide, the speed of the water may reach 20 km/h (12 mph), creating vortices up to 20 m (66 ft) in diameter.
Minamiawaji is a city in the southern part of Awaji Island in Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan.
The Ōnaruto Bridge is a suspension bridge on the Kobe-Awaji-Naruto Expressway connecting Minamiawaji, Hyogo on Awaji Island with Naruto, Tokushima on Ōge Island, Japan. Completed in 1985, it has a main span of 876 metres (2,874 ft). Although it is one of the largest bridges in the world, it is dwarfed by the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge, which is on the same route. In 2004, 6.8 million cars and trucks crossed this bridge, translating into a daily average of about 18,600.
Setonaikai National Park is a national park comprising areas of Japan's Inland Sea and of ten bordering prefectures. Designated a national park in 1934, it has since been expanded several times. It contains about 3,000 islands, known as the Setouchi Islands, including the well-known Itsukushima. As the park is formed of many non-contiguous areas and covers a tiny proportion of the Inland Sea's total extent, control and protection is problematic, with much of the wider area heavily industrialized.
National Route 28 is a national highway connecting Kobe and Tokushima in Japan. It is the only national highway that traverses Awaji Island as the route uses ferries to connect the two cities of Naruto, Tokushima and Akashi, Hyōgo.
The Tanagawa Line is a railway line in Osaka Prefecture, Japan, owned by Nankai Electric Railway. This line connects to the Nankai Main Line.
Japan Median Tectonic Line, also Median Tectonic Line (MTL), is Japan's longest fault system. The MTL begins near Ibaraki Prefecture, where it connects with the Itoigawa-Shizuoka Tectonic Line (ISTL) and the Fossa Magna. It runs parallel to Japan's volcanic arc, passing through central Honshū to near Nagoya, through Mikawa Bay, then through the Inland Sea from the Kii Channel and Naruto Strait to Shikoku along the Sadamisaki Peninsula and the Bungo Channel and Hōyo Strait to Kyūshū.
The Honshu-Shikoku Bridge Expressway Company Limited, abbreviated as JB本四高速 in Japanese or HSBE in English, operates the Kobe-Awaji-Naruto, Nishiseto, and Seto-Chūō expressways and their respective bridges between the islands of Honshu and Shikoku, Japan. It is headquartered in Chūō-ku, Kōbe, Hyōgo Prefecture.
The Akashi Strait is a strait between the Japanese islands of Honshu and Awaji. The strait connects Seto Inland Sea and Osaka Bay. The width of the Akashi Strait is approximately 4 kilometers, and maximum depth is about 110 meters. The fastest tidal current is about 4.5 metres per second.
The Awaji dialect, also called Awaji ben (淡路弁), is a dialect of Japanese spoken on Awaji Island in the southern part of Hyōgo Prefecture. According to the introduction of "Comprehensive Study of the Kinki Region," a publication of the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (NINJAL), titled "Subgroupings of the Kinki Dialects", the Awaji Dialect straddles the Central and Western Kansai dialect regions. The dialect shares many features with the dialects of the cities of Osaka, Kobe, and Wakayama, which is shares the Osaka Bay with, as well as with that of Tokushima Prefecture, which exercised control over Awaji Island during the feudal period. On the other hand, it bears little resemblance to the Banshū dialect, spoken right across the Akashi Strait from the island.
The Kobe-Awaji-Naruto Expressway is a tolled expressway that connects Hyōgo and Tokushima prefectures in Japan by crossings of the Akashi Strait and Naruto Strait. Built between 1970 and 1998, it is one of the three routes of the Honshu-Shikoku Bridge Expressway Company connecting Honshū and Shikoku islands. The route is signed E28 under Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism's "2016 Proposal for Realization of Expressway Numbering."
