The rest consists of the hills and mountains that form land borders with other regions of Japan.

[4][5] The Kantō Regional Development Bureau (関東地方整備局, Kantō chihō seibi-kyoku) of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism in the national government is responsible for eight prefectures generally (Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Saitama, Chiba, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Yamanashi) and parts of the waterways in two others (Nagano and Shizuoka).

[8] Tokyo is not part of Kantō or any NPA region, its police has a dedicated liaison office with the national agency of its own.

Just north of the Enna Hills is Japan's largest alluvial fan Nasuno at the foot of Mt.

Tokyo Bay is surrounded by the Boso Peninsula and the Miura Peninsula, facing the west side of Chiba Prefecture, a part of Tokyo and the east side of Kanagawa Prefecture, and borders the Pacific Ocean from Uraga Suido.

[9] The moment Ieyasu appointed to rule Kantō, he immediately assign his premier vassals such as Ii Naomasa, Honda Tadakatsu, Sakakibara Yasumasa, and Sakai Ietsugu, son of Sakai Tadatsugu, each to control large area of the former Hōjō clan territories in Kantō.

Historian such as Kawamura saw this step was meant to bring order the newly subdued population of the area, while also to guard the eastern domains from the influence or threat from the Satomi clan which was not yet submit to the rule of Toyotomi at that time.

Rice is the principal crop, although the zone around Tokyo and Yokohama has been landscaped to grow garden produce for the metropolitan market.

[citation needed] In between January 1918 and April 1920, Japan was afflicted by Spanish flu pandemic, which claimed more than 400,000 Japanese lives.

[citation needed] A watershed moment of Japan's modern history took place in the late Taishō period: the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923.

The quake, which claimed more than 100,000 lives and ravaged Greater Tokyo area, occurred at a time when Japan was still reeling from the economic recession in reaction to the high-flying years during World War I.

The name Kanto is nowadays generally considered to mean the region east (東) of the Hakone Barrier (箱根関).

An antonym of Kanto, "West of the Barrier" means the Kansai region, which lies western Honshu and was the center of feudal Japan.

[citation needed] The most often used subdivision of the region is dividing it to "North Kantō" (北関東, Kita-Kantō), consisting of Ibaraki, Tochigi, and Gunma prefectures, and "South Kantō" (南関東, Minami-Kantō), consisting of Saitama (sometimes classified North),[citation needed][by whom?]

Keirin's South Kantō (南関東, Minami-Kantō) consists of Chiba, Kanagawa, and Shizuoka prefectures.

Japan's national public broadcaster NHK uses Kantō-kō-shin-etsu (関東甲信越) involving Yamanashi, Nagano, and Niigata prefectures for regional programming and administration.

[47] The Kantō region largely corresponds to the Tokyo Metropolitan Area with the exception that it does not contain Yamanashi prefecture.

[50] Sources:,[51] Conversion rates - Exchange rates - OECD Data The population of Kantō region is very similar to that of the Greater Tokyo Area[52][better source needed] except that it does not contain Yamanashi Prefecture and contains the rural populations throughout the region.