 Shizuoka is located in central Honshu, the main island
of Japan. It faces Mt. Fuji and the Japan Alps to
the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the south, stretching
150 km (96 miles) from east to west. Shizuoka's importance
has been growing through the ages while supporting
the major transport artery in Japan.
 Central Shizuoka is situated within 200 km (124 miles) - or no more than 1 hour by Shinkansen (bullet train) - from both Tokyo, the capital city of Japan, and the Chukyo Metropolitan Area, centered on Nagoya City in Aichi Prefecture, where the Toyota Motor Corporation is headquartered. The table below lists cities located within 200 km of principal cities of the world. It shows that Shizuoka is conveniently located in close vicinity to these major metropolitan areas in terms of travel distance and time. Capitalizing on such proximity to those key domestic markets, the relatively reasonable cost of plant siting, and a well-established industrial infrastructure, a wide variety of manufacturing industries are concentrated in Shizuoka.
| Principal city |
|
Cities located within
200 km |
| New York |
Bridgeport, Philadelphia, Newark, Atlantic City |
| Los Angeles |
San Diego, Long Beach, Santa
Ana |
| London |
Birmingham, Bristol, Dover, Portsmouth, Southampton |
| Paris |
Le Havre, Le Mans, Lille |
| Dusseldorf |
Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Brussels, Koln, Dortmund, Essen, Duisburg |
| Shizuoka |
Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya |
Shizuoka has a population of
approximately 3.8 million, which is as large as New Zealand
or Ireland. Taken alone, its population is large enough
to shape an attractive market. However, if the population
of the Tokyo and the Chukyo metropolitan areas are added,
the market size becomes approximately 33 million people!
That is a little over a quarter of the population of
Japan, and is comparable to that of Canada or Morocco.
Compared to Canada, which stretches more than 5,000 km
(approx. 3,100 miles) from east to west, and more than
4,500 km (approx. 2,700 miles) from north to south, such
a high concentration of people within 200 km will
definitely offer benefits and efficiency to a business.
| Country |
|
Population |
| Spain |
40,280,780 |
| Argentina |
39,144,753 |
| Poland |
38,626,349 |
|
 |
| Country |
|
Population |
| Canada |
32,507,874 |
| Morocco |
32,209,101 |
| Shizuoka + Tokyo + Chukyo |
Approx. 33,000,000 |
|
It has often been said that Shizuoka is the best location
to conduct market research on products to be newly released
in Japan, thanks to its reasonable population size, easy
access to both the Tokyo and the Chukyo metropolitan
areas, and a variety of prosperous industries. Shizuoka
maximizes convenience through every aspect of a venture,
from market research to plant siting.
|
