What is so great about Japan? Things Japan is crowned No.1

When it comes to the size of land, Japan belongs to the low-ranked group. But this little country has many of world records in other fields. The followings are some of categories Japan is recorded as the best in the world. How many did you know?

The world’s tallest tower: Tokyo Skytree

Let’s start with Tokyo Skytree, known as the tallest tower in the world. It is the second tallest as a man-made structure, following the 828m skyscraper Burj Khalifa in Dubai. But it is ranked the world No.1 as a freestanding radio tower. It was originally designed to be 610m high from the ground, but extended to 634m high during the construction to beat China’s Canton Tower which was also under construction back then and the height was extended from 609m to 618m.

The world’s shortest city name & station name: Tsu

Tsu city is the capital city of Mie prefecture that is located in the east side of the Kii Peninsula, the largest peninsula of Japan. The name is spelled “TSU” in the above picture, but it is recorded as a shortest pronounced city name “Z”, as well as the shortest railway station name in the Guiness World Records. But it seems too short to pronounce even for the Japanese, and local people stretch the sound like “Tsuu” when they pronounce it.

The world’s best-selling video game software: Nintendo Wii Sports

In the video game industry, “Wii Sports” recorded the world No.1 performance by selling over 80,000,000 copies. This is an action involved video game that players can enjoy many types of sports games by moving a controller. This software is packaged with Wii hardware outside of Japan most of the time, therefore it is hard to determine whether this sales record was achieved by the popularity of this software by itself. But it is sure that the simple operation of this game has been loved by many players beyond their gender and generations. By the way, there is another legendary Japanese video game. “Super Mario Brothers” reigned as No.1 selling game for long before “Wii Sports” came out.

The world’s most printed comic series: ONE PIECE

Japanese comics and animations have been internationally recognized and attracting many fans from all over the world. Among other comic books and animation series, “ONE PIECE” has outstanding popularity among variety of nationalities and generations. This series is recorded with Guiness World Records as the most copies published for the same comic book series by a single author. As at December 2014, more than 320million copies were published to be read in more than 35 countries including U.S, China and many European countries. The record will keep growing as this series is still going on.

The world’s busiest railway station: Shinjuku Station

Shinjuku Station was listed on Guiness World Records as the world’s busiest railway station used by 3.64million passengers per day. Considering the 36million of population in Tokyo metropolitan area, it can be calculated that one in 10 residents of central Tokyo uses Shinjuku Station everyday. It is known as the largest dungeon of Japan with the complicated building structure and a number of gates and exits locating everywhere in the building. It is so hard to get the right direction here. The new gates added in March 2016 made it extra complicated.

The world’s best water supply system

The leakage rate is one of the index to determine the efficiency of water supply systems. This is to measure amount of water loss during the course of water supply starting from the water origin until the water reaches user’s tap. The less the score is, the more efficient the water supply system is. While the average scores of major cities in the world stay around 10%, overall Japan marks 5% and Tokyo city by itself marks incredible 3%. In addition to the low leakage rate, clean and safe drinking water straight out from the tap is taken for granted in Japan thanks to the high standard of water supply system. However, this is not always common in other countries around the world.

The world’s longest life expectancy

Living a long healthy life is a desire shared by the entire human race. According to the report published by WHO in May 2016, Japan was the country with the highest life expectancy in both sex at 83.7 years. While men in Japan ranked 6th highest at 80.5 years, women in Japan is honored with the highest life expectancy in the world at 86.8 years. Japan has reigned as the world’s longest living nationality for over 20 years. Misao Okawa was listed on Guiness World Records as the world’s oldest living person at 114 years of age, and lived another 3years with energy until she passed away in 2015 at 117 years of age.

The tale never ends

Other than introduced so far, Japan is crowned with many more world’s No.1 in many other fields. But just like the Seikan Tunnel between Aomori and Hokkaido stepped down from the throne of world’s longest tunnel for the Gotthard Base Tunnel of Switzerland, the world’s No.1 crown is never permanent. What Japan is really on top of others is, the desire driving its nation to create better things than ever.