The author pointed out that natural and cultural landscapes in one region indicate often its climatic characters. The landscape “distribution of windbreaks in Japan” may be looked upon as such an example., Fig. 1 shows the distribution of windbreaks per unit area in all the prefectures and Fig. 2 shows the distribution of coastal windbreaks. per unit length of coastal line for the various prefectures. These ' two figures show very interesting characters. He' investigates here only the distribution of coastal windbreaks hereafter because they amount to more than 90% of the whoie windbreaks in Japan, so windbi eaks in Japan surve chiefly as the protection against the sea winds.
The windreaks are most predominant on the following five regions, i. e. North Japan, Hokuriku (the central part of Japan Sea side), North Kyushu, Nankaido (South Kyushu, Shikoku) and the Pacific side of the region including North Kanto and South Tohoku. As are shown by Fig. 3, except the last region, these areas are recognized as the regions with strong winds. On the Japan sea side the distribution of the density of windbreaks accords with the wind speed in winter, so the windbreaks surve as the protection ag inst the monsoon in winter.
On the Pacific side the distribution of windbreask accords with the distribution of wind speed in fall. In this area the damages of typhoons are mcst violent in the fall, so the windbreaks surve chiefly as the protection against typhoons.
On the Pacific side of the region including North Kanto and South Tohoku the wind speed is not so strong that can not be accunted for by the winter monsoon or typhoon alone. In other seasons winds are also not so strong. But in early summer cold air-masses flow often from Okhotsk Sea to this area, so it is very cool in this area (Fig. 4). Many evidences show that the windbreaks in this area surve as the effective protection against the inflow of cold air-masses.
Now we may recognize climatic characters of various regions in Japan, reflected on landscapes through the investigation of distribution of wind breaks. Pine trees are most predominant, pinus desif lora are in North Ja pan and pinus thumbergii in South Japan (Fig, 5).
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