Historical-Geographical Approach to the Interrelationship between the Growth of the Local Central Cities and the Socio-Spatial Activities of Human Agencies

Modern historical geographers in Japan have paid only a little attention to the developing process of places located in the peripheral regions of modern Japan, because our academic interests have mainly directed to the central cities in the core regions, such as Tokyo and Osaka etc. as the large city. In this study, we focuse on the local cities and towns greatly contributing to the political-economical developing process of modern Japan, concretely Otaru, Koriyama, Niigata, Tsuruga, Kure, Chikuho, Nagasaki, Pusan and other Korean and Manchurian towns etc. The main purposes of this study are solving the following problems. 1) How did the above local places develop to the vital place in modern Japan? 2) What influences did the powerful human agencies of the localities and their time-spatial behaviors and activities given to the regional formation in modern Japan? We can accomplish the historical-geographical explanation of the regional formation process in Japanese localities.