Kantō region

Kantō region 関東地方
Region
The Kantō region in comparison to the rest of Japan
Closeup map of the areas within the Kantō region
Area
• Total	32,423.90 km2 (12,518.94 sq mi)
Population (April 1, 2012)
• Total	42,598,300
• Density	1,300/km2 (3,400/sq mi)
Time zone	JST (UTC+9)

The Kantō region (関東地方, Kantō-chihō^?) is a geographical area of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. The region includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures: Gunma, , Ibaraki, Saitama, Tokyo, Chiba, and Kanagawa. Within its boundaries, slightly more than 45 percent of the land area is the Kantō Plain. The rest consists of the hills and mountains that form the land borders. In official census count on October 1, 2010 by the Japan Statistics Bureau, the population was 42,607,376 amounting to approximately one third of the total population of Japan.

The heartland of feudal power during the Kamakura period and again in the Edo period, Kantō became the center of modern development. Within the Greater Tokyo Area and especially the Tokyo-Yokohama metropolitan area, Kantō houses not only Japan's seat of government but also the nation's largest group of universities and cultural institutions, the greatest population, and a large industrial zone. Although most of the Kantō plain is used for residential, commercial, or industrial construction, it is still farmed. Rice is the principal crop, although the zone around Tokyo and Yokohama has been landscaped to grow garden produce for the metropolitan market.