Kyushu is Japan's third-largest and southwesternmost main island, covering about 36,800 km² with a population of roughly 12.4 million across its seven prefectures — Fukuoka, Kagoshima, Kumamoto, Miyazaki, Nagasaki, Oita, and Saga — plus the Okinawa island chain further south, which is administered separately as its own prefecture.
Archaeological finds place some of the earliest evidence of human settlement in the Japanese archipelago on Kyushu, and the island later served as Japan's main gateway to the Asian mainland: Nagasaki was the country's only officially permitted port for foreign trade during the roughly 220-year Edo-period policy of national seclusion (sakoku).
Fukuoka City, with around 1.6 million residents, is Kyushu's largest city and a major business and transport hub, home to one of Japan's regional stock exchanges. Kitakyushu and Omuta developed as heavy-industry centres, while the island is also one of Japan's most volcanically active regions — Mount Aso holds one of the world's largest calderas, and Sakurajima near Kagoshima erupts on an almost daily basis.
