Japan is a volcanic archipelago with 127 million inhabitants. Japan consists of four major islands, Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu and some 4000 small, mostly uninhabited, islands. The empire is trapped between the Japanese Sea and the Pacific ocean. The landscape consists of many densely forested mountains and hills, lakes, small fertile plains, short rivers and steep snow-covered mountains. There is a temperate climate. Only Okinawa has a subtropical climate. The capital Tokyo has nearly 9 million inhabitants and is considered one of the four major metropolises. Other cities Nagoya, Fukuoka, industrial city of Osaka, Kyoto, the ports of Kobe, Hiroshima, Yokohama and Nagasaki and the Olympic cities of Sapporo and Nagano. At the World Heritage list of UNESCO are Buddhist monuments in the Horyuji-areas, the Himeji Castle, Yakushima, Shirakami Sanchi, Old villages of Shirakawago and Gokayama, the Peace Monument in Hiroshima, the Itsukushima shrine, the historic monuments of ancient Nara, the temples of Nikko, the Gusuku location, three sacred sites and pilgrimage routes in the Kii Mountains, Shire Toko and the Iwami Ginzan silver mine.