Beyond Sushi & Sumo: 14 Interesting Things About Japan That Will Amaze You

For decades Japan was said to have about 6,850 islands. Then in 2023 the country did a proper digital recount — and found 14,125. Overnight, Japan more than doubled its own island count. Beyond the four big ones (Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku) is a vast, barely-explored archipelago stretching down to subtropical, near-tropical waters. You could visit for a lifetime and not scratch it.

Japan has the highest density of vending machines on the planet — roughly one for every 30 people. And they don't just sell drinks: hot ramen, fresh eggs, umbrellas, flowers, cans of hot coffee in winter, ice cream, even (occasionally) fresh crab. On a night out you're never more than a few metres from a cold drink, and half the fun of Japan is discovering what the next machine sells.

In 2015, Tokyo's Shinjuku ward granted Godzilla honorary residency and made him a tourism ambassador — complete with an official certificate. The 'address' on it is a building Godzilla is famously depicted destroying. Only in Japan does a 50-metre fictional monster get his own paperwork.

In most of the world, slurping gets you a glare. In Japan, noisily slurping your ramen, udon or soba is a compliment — it signals you're enjoying the meal, and it genuinely cools the noodles and enhances the flavour as you eat. Lean in and slurp with confidence; the chef will take it as praise.

Kongō Gumi, a construction firm specialising in Buddhist temples, was founded in Osaka in the year 578 AD — and operated continuously for over 1,400 years, through samurai, shoguns and world wars, before becoming a subsidiary in 2006. It's a staggering symbol of Japan's reverence for craft, continuity and doing one thing extraordinarily well for a very long time.

Japan's culture of honesty is almost hard to believe until you experience it. Drop your wallet or phone and there's a genuinely high chance it'll be handed in to the nearest police box (kōban) with everything still inside. Lost property is a national point of pride, and it makes travelling — especially solo — feel remarkably safe.

Japanese rail punctuality is legendary. The average delay on the Shinkansen bullet trains is measured in seconds, and when a train does leave even 20 seconds ahead of schedule, the operator has been known to issue a formal public apology. If a train is more than five minutes late, staff hand out 'delay certificates' to prove to your boss it wasn't your fault.

Thanks to a wildly successful 'Kentucky for Christmas' marketing campaign that began in the 1970s, millions of Japanese families now tuck into KFC on Christmas Eve. Demand is so intense that people order their festive bucket weeks in advance and queue for hours. Christmas isn't a public holiday in Japan — but fried chicken very much is the tradition.

Japan's most sacred mountain isn't entirely state property. Above roughly the 8th station, the summit of Mount Fuji is owned by a Shinto shrine, Fujisan Hongū Sengen Taisha, following a centuries-old claim later upheld by the courts. So when you finally haul yourself to the top at sunrise, you're technically standing on private, sacred land.

Every spring, Kawasaki hosts Kanamara Matsuri — the 'Festival of the Steel Phallus' — a centuries-old Shinto celebration where enormous phallus sculptures are paraded through the streets. Once tied to praying for fertility and safe childbirth, today it's a joyful, slightly surreal party that also raises money and awareness for HIV research. It is exactly as unforgettable as it sounds.

Japanese farmers grow watermelons in rigid boxes so they mature into perfect cubes — easier to stack, store and transport, and a striking gift. They're a luxury item that can cost the equivalent of £70–£100 or more, and they're usually bought for their looks rather than eaten. Peak Japan: even the fruit is precision-engineered.

Japan has a word — 'ohitorisama' — for happily doing things alone, and a whole culture built around it. Solo dining is standard (some ramen bars have individual booths so you never have to interact), and there are solo karaoke rooms designed for singing your heart out entirely by yourself. For solo travellers, it's liberating: nobody bats an eyelid at a table for one.

The capsule hotel is a Japanese invention: a wall of futuristic sleeping pods, each just big enough to lie down in, with a light, a socket and sometimes a tiny TV. They're cheap, clean, brilliantly efficient and a genuine only-in-Japan experience — perfect for a night in Tokyo when you've missed the last train (which, given how early it stops, you will).

One of the most surreal things you can legally do in Tokyo is drive a real go-kart through the actual city streets, in costume, weaving past Shibuya and Akihabara in a convoy. It's as fun as it looks — just note you'll need a valid International Driving Permit (sort it before you fly), and the once-Mario-themed tours have long since had to drop the Nintendo costumes.

The wild thing about Japan is that this list barely scratches it — for every fact here there are ten more waiting the moment you land. It's a country that rewards curiosity like almost nowhere else, where the strange and the sublime sit on the same street corner. Read up, then go see it for yourself: no amount of fun facts prepares you for how genuinely amazing it is in person.