In a railway traffic, the place where the flow of passengers is cut into two is a traffic divide. It may be delineated by the directions of passengers flow. A region surrounded by the traffic divides may be called a traffic community. The methods by which the sphere of a traffic community is determined are as follows:
In a case where there are many stations most of whose passengers ride towards one large city A, the sphere where those stations are distributed is called the traffic community of city A. The traffic divides. here are determind only along the railways. In no railway region, has the writer adopted the bus service method for deciding the sphere of a traffic community. This method was used in England and Wales by F. H. W. Green. In a mountainous district which have no bus service the writer has made use of the road pattern instead of bus services.
On Figure 1, the traffic communities in Japan are shown by dotted lines. Long-distance passengers in Japan usually travel by the Japan National Railways. So the writer has applied the size of the railway station as an indicator which shows the centrality of a place. It is said that the size of a railway station may be determined by the number or the net revenue of passenger fares. But the writer considers that the number of passengers of a station cannot exactly signify. its size. Because at many stations in giant cities, a larger percentage of passengers would have short trips. There are also more numerous commuters than ordinary passengers at such stations. On the contrary, in the case of a station of the regional center, relatively many passengers take long distance journeys The net revenue of passenger fares on a station would be able to show its size correctly. Because the passenger fares of long distance travellers are higher in price than that of short distance ones, and commuters have a reduced fare. Therefore the hierarchy or the grade of size of stations fo rthe whole country may be shown by their net revenue of passenger fares. The size of railway station based on net revenue of passenger fares has a logarithmic normal distribution. Figure I shows the distribution of sizes of main railway stations based on annual net revenue by the round sings from A to n. Figure 2 shows the types of traffic communities in main parts of Japan, which were determined by the size of their important stations and its numbers. The results of those analyses would be summarized as follows:
There are several large traffiic communities in Japan. For example, the traffic communities of Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Kyoto and Kobe have extremely wide areas and many large stations, and the centralities of their centers are very high. Most of the prefectural centers have a general type of traffic community. They are wide in area and the cent-ralities of their centers are relatively high. In an industrial area, traffic community forms a narrow region, but it has several large stations. In the marginal districts such as Hokkaido, Tohoku and southern Kyushu, principal traffic communities have rather wide area, but there are no large stations except their centers. In mountainous country, the traffic community becomes very narrow, and the centrality of its center is very low, then such small communities are apt to be continuous.

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There has not been a difinite conclusion to determine the normal priod of mean monthy temperature, which is an important process in climatology and meteorology, though in 1935 International Meteorological Organization proposed thirty years from 1901 to 1930 as a nomal period. From the statistical point of view it is doubtful to adopt the same period strictly for each station. Because the confidence interval of population mean temperature differs generally from each other, even for the same period. Consequently it is more reasonable to use the mean temperature with the same confidence interval rather than for the same period.
In the first place the relationship between the confidence interval and the number of years is explained, and then the minimum period necessary to obtain the mean temperature with the definite confidence interval 0.5°C is calculated. Finally the characteristic distribution of the minimum period is discussed from the standpoint of dynamic climato-logy.
The variations of accumulative mean temperature and the correspond-ing confidence interval are shown in Fig. 1 to 3 and numerical expressions of confidence limit are given in Tab. 1 to 3. In general the mean monthly temperature ranges about 1°C with the increasing number of years. The range depends upon both season and latitude, greater in winter than summer as well as in higher latitudes than lower, and the seasonal difference is more outstandinding in lower latitudes. The decrease of confidence interval with the increasing period is considerably steep for ten or so years at first, while it runs more gradually thereafter. As the difference of interval, for instance, between thirty and sixty years amounts to only 0.1°C, it is meaningless in practical sense to adopt an extremely long period.
The minimum normal period increases with latitude in both seasons, especially increases abruptly in the boundary region between Central and Northeastern Japan. The geographical distribution of nomal period is shown in Fig. 4 and 5. According to such a discontinuous pattern, Japan may be devided into two regions, Northeastern and Southwestern, with respect to the temperature variability.
The meridional gradient of normal period is resemble to the one of temperature, being larger in Northeastern Japan. As the region with large temperature variability is expected to be found.in the region with large gradient of temperature, it is inferred that the characteristic cir-culation type controlling the temperature pattern over the whole region is the primary factor leading to the regional difference of normal period. In summer the boundary region corresponds to the southern margin of frequent cool summer damage, a serious climatic disaster in Northeastern Japan, which is indentified by the average position of daily front or the climatic front. In wintet it seems the pattern of nomal period is deter-mined by the temperature regime in the Siberian air mass itself.

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The whole of Ratzel's considerations about political region is founded on the idea of “Staat als Organismus” and that of Maull's, on the idea of “Staat als Landschaftsgebiet”. Both fails to explain its modifi-cation and diversity satisfatory, because they do not deal with the politcal community which primarily affects its form and structure. Mackinder's consideration of heartland is not identified with the above two ideas of Ratzel and Maull; nevertheless, he did not take into consideration the relationship between political powers from the, functional point of view.
M. Le Lannou defined the political boundary, as a cause of geographial facts, rather than as a result of them. In this sense, political regions. must be regarded as economic regions bounded by political boundary.
The form and structure of political regions are unstable. The author has recognized three groups of factors which effect them. The first of those factors is for fitting; the second is for combining; the third is, for disconnecting.
They are as follows, (1) factors for fitting: a. land (as territory, as. “Ökum-ene” and as producing area), b. resource (as material base of state economy) c. ethnic community (as having common language, common faith, common living form), (2) factors for combining: a. function of traffic, b. regional differentiation of productive function, c. magnification and development of exchanging market. (3) factors for disconnecting: a. political boundary and frontier, b. control of economic relationship, c. antagonism of ideologies, etc..
Political region is the spatial representation of relationships between various political communities, and modes of combination of core-regions and marginal regions.
The types of rpolitical regions are classified as follows: 1. the first type (as having not clear core), 2. the second type (as having one core and forming not circlic structure), 3. the third type (circlic stru-cture, one core), 4. the fourth type (as having several homogeneous cores), 5. the fifth type (as having several heterogeneous cores). These types are variable, each of which is the complex of partial units. And between these units exist predominating unit and subordinate unit.
Several states in southern and eastern Asia form “Bewegugsgrenzen” between two powers, namely the capitalist states and the socialist states. Predominating unit in each power is also heartland, and “Bewegungs-grenzen” fall under marginal land. The ocean, as combining heartland with marginal land, is a stage of circulation. The magnification and the development of function of circulation are producing the modification and diversity of political region.

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