SPACEPHOTOS

Sendai Coast, Honshu, Japan June 1991. The physical landscape of the north central section of Honshu Island is shown in this west-looking view. The darker areas on the image identify the vegetated mountains and the lighter areas indicate coastal plains and isolated intermontane valleys where the urban areas are located. A limited amount of farming is carried out where topographic conditions permit. The dark, roughly oval-shaped feature (near upper left corner) is Inawashiro Lake, while the smaller less obvious oval feature (middle right-east of Oga Peninsula) is Lake Tazawa, a circular caldera that is the deepest lake in Japan (1388 feet-423 meters). Sendai Bay is the large, smooth coastline along the east side of Honshu, while the coastline north of this bay becomes more serrated-looking. The two “white spots” (oval, whiter features) near the central west coast are snow capped Mt. Chokai (northernmost)-7316 feet-2330 meters and Mt. Gassan- 6496 feet-1980 meters above sea level