Tsushima Strait

Originating along the Japanese islands, this current passes through the Sea of Japan then a branch eventually flowing into the Northern Pacific Ocean via the Tsugaru Strait south of Hokkaido.

A commercial ferry service operates between Shimonoseki at the western tip of Honshu and Busan (aka Pusan), South Korea.

The earliest settlement of Japan by people most resembling modern Japanese in littoral northern Kyushu next to the Eastern Channel is supported by legendary, historical, and archeological evidence, and is undisputed.

A range of dates when immigration began from what is the mainland via the Korean Peninsula to north Kyushu from the fall of Four Commanderies of Han (108 BC) to the 4th century AD.

For example, archeologists believe the first Mesolithic migrations (Jōmon) traveled across to Honshu around the 10th century BC, supplanting Paleolithic people that walked from Asia to Japan overland over 100,000 years ago when the sea level was lower during the Pleistocene ice age.

Buddhism, along with Chinese writing, was initially transmitted from Korean Peninsula via Eastern Channel to Japan in the 5th century by way of the straits as well.