Modern industry in Japan started at the beginning of the 20th century, about a hundred years after the Industrial Revolution in Europe. Though its first stage was light industry, it was converted to heavy industry with World War I as a turning point. World War 11 devastated most of its facilities, but the rapid post-war reconstruction has brought about the development of assembling industries such as cameras and transister radios.
Japan's present major industrial areas are in the Keihin urban area centering Tokyo and Yokohama, the Hanshin urban area centering Osaka and Kobe, the Chukyo urban area with Nagoya as its center, and the Northern Kyushu industrial area. More than 70% of the factories of the whole country are located in those places.
Through the investigation into the geographical distribution of those factories, we planned to grasp the ciharacteristics of those industrial areas, and as its first step a research was made on the geographical development of industrial plants situated in Tokyo, the center city of the largest industrial area in Japan.
Tokyo is situated at the east end of the Musashino Upland between the Arakawa and the Tama Rivers pouring into Tokyo Bay. It was founded as the capital city in the 17th century. The upper part of the Upland has developed as the residential area and the lower eastern part as the commercial and industrial area. The industrial production made in a part of this city resulted in a wholesale manual labour and, with the moderization of Japan at the end of the 19th century, spread its area reaching Yokohama, Tokyo's outer port, forming the industrial area called the Keihin industrial area.
The Keihin is the largest industrial area in Japan, where about 15 per cent of the total number of factories are concentrated and some 22 per cent in value of the total national shipments are made. Tokyo is the center of this industrial area, where approximately 90 per cent of the factories in this area are found and about 65 per cent in value of the total shipments are made.
The number of factories with workers 30 or more amouns to 6, 764 in Tokyo. In addition, there are more than 50, 000 smallscale plants employing less than 30 persons. These small plants are ignored in the map. The ratio of the small-scale factories in Tokyo is higher than that of the Keihin or the country as a whole.
From the standpoint of the nature and distribution, the industries in Tokyo may be classified into the following three categories;
1. Heavy and chemical industries (iron-steel, metal, non-ferrous metal, machinery, chemical, ceramic, stone and clay products manufacturing, petroleum and coal products manufacturing and various other similar industries), which provide materials to other industries.
2. Assembling industries (electrical machinery, transportation machinery, precision machinery manufacturing industries), and
3. Light industries (food, fiber, cloth, wood, furniture, paper, printing, leather and miscellaneous manufacturing industries)
(1) Heavy and chemical industrial establishments (Fig. 2, Fig. 3) are concentrated on the following three areas: the eastern area, the delta of the Sumida River; the northern area stretching from the alluvial plain along the Arakawa River (of which the River Sumida is a lower branch) to the eastern end of the Mushashino Diluvial Upland 9 and the Southern area situated on the alluvial plain of the Tama River and the western end of the Musashino Diluvial Upland.
In the southern part of the eastern area are found iron-steel mills, metal working and machinery manufacturing plants, which turn out steel products, steel products for manufacturing construction machinery, and other heavy products, as well as shipbuilding yards. Crisscrossed creeks are convenient for transporting raw materials to feed large-scale factories with more than 300 workers.

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Rising from the southern part of the Kiso Mountains, Central Japan, the Yahagi River flows southwestward through the narrow valley in the granitic area of Mikawa Plateau, one of the famous elevated peneplains in Japan. In the lower course area, this river flows down along the western foot of Mikawa Plateau, developing the broad lowland which consists of younger Pliocene unconsolidated deposits called Yadagawa Formation. It enters into the Mikawa Bay opening the pacific Ocean. This lowland is named Nishi-Mikawa Plain.
The authers surveyed this area in order to make clear the geomorphic history. The main results are as follows:
1) The Nishi-Mikawa Plain is divided into six landform surfaces. They are Fujioka(200-60m in altitude), Miyoshi (130-35), Koromo (130-20), Hekikai (80-5), Koshido (50-35) and the alluvial surfaces.
2) Fujioka Surface is considered to be a depositional surface of Yadagawa Formation, one of the most important Pliocene deposits in Japan. It has the character of lacustrine deposits. Morphologically, Fujioka Surface is classified into two groups. The one is the flat topped hills situated in the northern part, and the other is a low relief hillland in the southwestern part. It is presumed that such a difference is caused by the difference of the lithological composition of Yadagawa Formation. Namely, in the northern part where the gravels prevail, the original flat surface is preserved, while in the southwestern part consisting of sands and silts, the surface has a tendency to erode.
3) Miyoshi surfaceis a high flat topped terrace, and is presumed to be a depositional surface of Miyoshi Formation which was accumulated by the Yahagi River.
4) Koromo Surface is the depositional terrace of Koromo Formation which was transported by the Yahagi. River, too. The northern part of this surface is an elevated fan and the southern part is an elevated delta.
5) Hekikai Surface is also the depositional terrace of Hekikai Formation derived from the Yahagi River Although Hekikai Formation has characteristic features of the fan or flood plain deposits in the north, some features of delta and neritic sediments are seen in the south.
6) While above mentioned surfaces are broadly developed in this region, Koshido Surface is locally distributed only along the Yahagi River. This surface is concluded to be the river terrace. In the lower course area, this terrace surface is buried with the marine deposits of Alluvial age.
7) It is interpreted that Miyoshi, Koromo and Hekikai Surfaces were formed during the stage of successive high sea level of Pleistocene Period, and the altitude of the estimated ancient shore line is about 80m in Koromo Surface, and about 20m in Hekikai Surface.
8) On the contrary, Koshido Surface was formed in the last low sea level stage just before the Alluvial transgression.
Explanations of figures, tables and photographs
Fig. 1: the contour map of the area studied (contour interval lOm)
In this map, the valleys of the width less than 300m are excluded.
Fig 2: map of the landform surface classification
1: Fujioka Surface 2: Miyoshi Surface 3: Koromo Surface 4: Hekikai surface 5: Koshido Surface The straight lines show the position of cross-sections in Fig. 4.
Fig. 3: facies and thickness of the deposits forming the landform surfaces
Figures show the thickness of deposits in meter.
1: sand and gravel 2: clay, silt and sand 3: natural levee and off-shore bar distributed on the Hekikai Surface
Fig. 4: cross-sections
1: granitic rocks 2: Yadagawa Formation 3: Miyoshi Formation 4: Koromo Formation. 5: Hekikai Formation 6: Koshido Formation and alluvium
Fig. 5: longitudinal profiles
1: Miyoshi Surface 2: Koromo Surface 3: Hekikai Surface 4: Koshido Surface 5: present river floor of the Yahagi River
Tab. 1: descrption about the examples of Miyoshi, Koromo, Hekikai and Koshido Formation

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