This paper is an inquiry into the methodological problems of ethnic geography, or geography of ethnicity, through a review of geographical studies of immigrant ethnic groups. The term ethnic group means here a more or less distinct group of people which can be identified by themselves as well as by others within the framework of a modern national society. The term ethnicity is used to refer to the socio-cultural characters of the members of an ethnic group manifested due to their ethnic background (cf. Takezawa, 1994), or simply the state of being ethnic; of possessing ethnic quality or affiliation (cf. Jordan and Rowntree, 1986).
Hitherto, the methodology of ethnic geography has been discussed mainly by cultural geographers. For example, Jordan and Rowntree (1986) defined ethnic geography as the study of the spatial aspects of ethnicity and classified its subject into five main themes from the viewpoint of cultural geography; i. e. ethnic culture regions, cultural diffusion and ethnic groups, cultural ecology and ethnicity, cultural integration and ethnicity, and ethnic landscapes. Raitz (1979) discussed the themes in the cultural geography of European ethnic groups in the United States focusing on Americanization, acculturation and assimilation, cultural transfer, ethnicity and religion, and integration and ethnic identity. This paper attempts to examine the methodo-logical characteristics and problems of existing studies which approached ethnicity or ethnic groups mainly in North America and Britain from the viewpoint of human geography, especially of social and cultural geography, classifying their themes into five main categories; formation and historical development of ethnic groups and geographical dimension, residential patterns and segregation, formation and changing characters of ethnic territories, ethnicity and regional socio-cultural integration, and ethnic cultural landscapes.
It is noteworthy that these five themes are structurally interrelated in the settlement process of an immigrant ethnic group. An ethnic group starts its own history with the process of immigration into a foreign country. After struggling to adapt to the new environment of the country, the members of the group establish a certain subsystem in the socio-cultural and economic system of the host society which shows a degree of regional socio-cultural integration, and its visible imprints on the earth-surface can be observed as the components of an ethnic landscape. We can also speak of an ethnic territory and ethnic residential segregation when the members of the ethnic group occupy a more or less defined residential area. The degree of segregation is usually decreasing as the members of the group are being assimilated into the host society; that means they are gradually transforming the nature of their own territory and changing their socio-cultural characters within the host society. All these situations and processes compose the whole process of the historical development of an ethnic group to which geographical conditions are closely related. Therefore, when we think of any one of these five themes, all the others come automatically into perspective; in other words our study of ethnic geography can be organised around the above-mentioned five themes. Finally, it should be noted that more humanistic and radical approaches on the ethnicity-related spatial processes will further expand our perspective in ethnic geography. This paper is an inquiry into the methodological problems of ethnic geography, or geography of ethnicity, through a review of geographical studies of immigrant ethnic groups. The term ethnic group means here a more or less distinct group of people which can be identified by themselves as well as by others within the framework of a modern national society. The term ethnicity is used to refer to the socio-cultural characters of the members of an ethnic group manifested due to their ethnic background (cf. Takezawa, 1994),

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Kashira Island is situated in the Inland Sea, near Hinase town, Okayama Prefecture. The 44-m core consisted of clay, sandy clay, gravel with sand, humus and tephra (Aira: 2, 540-2, 390cm depth, Akahoya: 1, 900-1, 890cm depth). The humus portion (2, 368-2, 360cm depth) was dated to 21, 100±400yr B. P. by the ¹⁴C-dating method.
Pollen analysis revealed the core to consist of nine pollen and two barren zones. Layers containing Lagerstroemia pollen, the important index taxa for the warm period, were regarded as sediments of the warm period. This core may contain the sediments of four warm (KS-9, 8, 6, 4-1) and three cold periods (KS-7, 5 and BZ-2, 1). KS-4-1 represent the post glacial period.

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Downslope stone movements were measured on stone-banked lobes in a nivation hollow on the Daisetsu Mountains. Surface stones were painted on three lobes with gradients of 27, 22, 12 degrees in September, 1989. Displacements of the painted stones were measured in October 1991 and 1997.
The deformation features of painted lines showed lobe and tongue like patterns. The average rates of the movements were higher in the central part of the lobes, ranging from 4.5 to 9.2cm/year, while those in the marginal part ranged from 0.5 to 4.5cm/year. Stones moved uniformly with little disturbance of configuration in the marginal part. But stones were scattered in the central part. Smaller stones tended to be moved farther.

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