Kyushu

The third largest island of Japan, and the most southwesterly of Japan's four main islands, Kyushu is mountainous and contains Japan's most active volcano, Mt Aso. There are many other signs of tectonic activity in Kyushu, including numerous areas of hot springs, the most famous of these being in Beppu City, on the east shore, and around Mt. Aso, in central Kyushu. There are also significant mud hot springs in the northern part of the island around Beppu.

The varieties of Japanese spoken in Kyushu are divided into three groups: the Hichiku dialects spoken in western Kyushu, the Hōnichi dialects spoken in eastern Kyushu, and the Satsugu (Kagoshima) dialects spoken in the Kagoshima province. Rural Kyushu dialects can be nearly unintelligible to people who are accustomed to standard Japanese, with the Satsugū dialect being famous for its mutual unintelligibility to even its neighbouring Kyushu variants.

Most of Kyushu's population is concentrated along the northwest, in the cities of Fukuoka and Kitakyushu, with population corridors stretching southwest into Sasebo and Nagasaki and south into Kumamoto and Kagoshima. Excepting Oita and Miyazaki cities, the eastern seaboard shows a general decline in population.

Major agricultural products in Kyushu are rice, tea, tobacco, sweet potatoes, and soy, with silk is also being widely produced. The island is also noted for various types of porcelain, including Arita, Imari, Satsuma, and Karatsu. Heavy industry is concentrated in the north around Fukuoka, Kitakyushu, Nagasaki, and Oita and includes chemicals, automobiles, semiconductors, and metal processing. Lexus has a large, state of the art, manufacturing plant in Kyushu.