Coastal plain in the context of "Jebel Aqra"

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asian mainland, it is bordered to the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea in the south. The Japanese archipelago consists of four major islands alongside 14,121 smaller islands. Japan is divided into 47 administrative prefectures and eight traditional regions, and around 75% of its terrain is mountainous and heavily forested, concentrating its agriculture and highly urbanized population along its eastern coastal plains. With a population of over 123 million as of 2025, it is the world's 11th most populous country. Tokyo is the country's capital and largest city.

The first known habitation of the archipelago dates to the Upper Paleolithic, with the beginning of the Japanese Paleolithic dating to c. 36,000 BC. Between the 4th and 6th centuries, its kingdoms were united under an emperor in Nara and later Heian-kyō. From the 12th century, actual power was held by military aristocrats known as shōgun and feudal lords called daimyō, enforced by warrior nobility named samurai. After rule by the Kamakura and Ashikaga shogunates and a century of warring states, Japan was unified in 1600 by the Tokugawa shogunate, which implemented an isolationist foreign policy. In 1853, an American fleet forced Japan to open trade to the West, which led to the end of the shogunate and the restoration of imperial power in 1868.

A fall line (or fall zone) is the area where an upland region and a coastal plain meet and is especially noticeable at the place rivers cross it, with resulting rapids or waterfalls. The uplands are relatively hard crystalline basement rock, and the coastal plain is softer sedimentary rock. A fall line often will recede upstream as a river cuts out the uphill dense material, forming "c"-shaped waterfalls and exposing bedrock shoals. Due to these features, riverboats typically cannot travel any further inland without portaging, unless locks are built. The rapid change of elevation of the water and resulting energy release make the fall line a good location for water mills, grist mills, and sawmills. Seeking a head of navigation with a ready supply of water power, people have long made settlements where rivers cross a fall line.

In geography, a plain, commonly known as flatland, is a flat expanse of land that generally has few rapid or steep changes in elevation. Natural vegetation in plains can include prairies/grasslands, forests, savanah, tundra, and desert biomes, among others. Plains occur as lowlands along valleys or at the base of mountains, as coastal plains, and as plateaus or uplands. Plains are one of the major landforms on earth, being present on all continents and covering more than one-third of the world's land area. Plains in many areas are important for agriculture. There are various types of plains, and biomes on them.

The San Juan–Bayamón–Caguas metropolitan area, most commonly known as the San Juan metropolitan area (Spanish: área metropolitana de San Juan), is the largest and most populous metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in Puerto Rico, concentrated in the capital municipality of San Juan and surrounding municipalities, including Bayamón, Caguas, and Carolina, on the northeastern coastal plain of the main island. One of 6 metropolitan statistical areas in Puerto Rico, it is within the San Juan–Bayamón combined statistical area (CSA), which is one of 3 primary statistical areas in the archipelago as defined by the United States Census Bureau. As of 2023, the estimated population of the San Juan–Bayamón–Caguas metropolitan area is 842,535 in municipalities in the conurbation and 1,193,198 in municipalities outside the urban core, making it the fourth largest in the insular Caribbean.

Durrës County (Albanian: Qarku i Durrësit), officially the County of Durrës (Albanian: Qarku i Durrësit), is a county in the Northern Region of the Republic of Albania. It is the smallest by area and the second most populous of the twelve counties, with 292,029 people within an area of 766 km (296 sq mi). The county borders on the Adriatic Sea to the west, the counties of Lezhë to the north, Dibër to the east and Tirana to the south. It is divided into three municipalities, Durrës, Krujë and Shijak, with all of whom incorporate sixteen administrative units.

The county has geographically a coastline on the Albanian Adriatic Sea Coast and extends in the Western Lowlands on a flat alluvial and coastal plain. The east is characterised by the Skanderbeg Mountains which splits the Western Lowlands from the Central Mountain Range. Its climate is profoundly determined by its proximity to the Mediterranean Sea and its considerable change in terrain.

Akkar District (Arabic: قضاء عكار) is the only district in Akkar Governorate, Lebanon. It is coextensive with the governorate and covers an area of 788 km (304 sq mi). The UNHCR estimated the population of the district to be 389,899 in 2015, including 106,935 registered refugees of the Syrian Civil War and 19,404 Palestinian refugees. The capital is at Halba.

The district is characterized by the presence of a relatively large coastal plain, with high mountains to the east. The largest cities in Akkar are Halba, Bire Akkar and Al-Qoubaiyat.

Tihamah or Tihama (Arabic: تِهَامَةُ Tihāmah) is the Red Sea coastal plain of the Arabian Peninsula from the Gulf of Aqaba to the Bab el Mandeb.

The Israeli coastal plain (Hebrew: מישור החוף, romanized: Mishor HaḤof, lit. 'coastal plain') is the Israeli segment of the Levantine coastal plain of the Mediterranean Sea, extending 187 kilometres (116 mi) north to south. It is a geographical region defined morphologically by the sea, in terms of topography and soil, and also in its climate, flora and fauna. It is narrow in the north and broadens considerably towards the south, and is continuous, except the short section where Mount Carmel reaches almost all the way to the sea. The Coastal Plain is bordered to the east by – north to south – the topographically higher regions of the Galilee, the low and flat Jezreel Valley, the Carmel range, the mountains of Samaria, the hill country of Judea known as the Shephelah, and the Negev Mountains in the south. To the north it is separated from the coastal plain of Lebanon by the cliffs of Rosh HaNikra, which jut out into the sea from the Galilee mountains, but to the south it continues into the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula.

The plain can be conventionally divided into a number of areas: the Northern Coastal Plain borders the Galilee in its northern part, and the Jezreel Valley in its southern part between Akko and Haifa, where it is also called the Plain of Zebulon; Hof HaCarmel, or the Carmel Coastal Plain, runs along the Mount Carmel range; the Sharon Plain continues down to northern Tel Aviv; the Central Coastal Plain stretches from Tel Aviv to the northern limit of the Gaza Strip, with the Nahal Shikma [he] stream as its limit – there Israel's access to the Mediterranean ends and the Israeli Southern Coastal Plain, also known as the Western Negev, actually consists of the hinterland of the Strip. For almost its entire length, the plain has sandy beaches, and a Mediterranean climate, except at its southern end where the climate is semi-arid.

The Shanhai Pass (simplified Chinese: 山海关; traditional Chinese: 山海關; pinyin: Shānhǎi Guān; lit. 'Mountain Sea Pass') is a major fortified gateway at the eastern end of the Great Wall of China and one of its most crucial fortifications, as the pass commands the narrowest choke point in the strategic Liaoxi Corridor, an elongated coastal plain between the Yan Mountains foothills and the Bohai Sea, which is the only easily traversable landway between North and Northeast China. It is located in present-day Shanhaiguan District, Qinhuangdao, Hebei province, on the east bank of the Shi River, with defensive walls stretching from the Yan Mountains all the way to the shores of the Liaodong Bay.

Throughout Chinese history, garrisons around the pass served as frontline defensive outposts against raids and incursions into the North China Plain by various non-Sinitic ethnic groups from the Northeast (also known as Manchuria since the 19th century), including the Dongyi, Donghu (Xianbei and Wuhuan), Khitan and Jurchen (Manchus). The current Shanhai Pass was built during the early Ming dynasty as the easternmost fortification of the Ming Great Wall, and was extensively reinforced after Yongle Emperor moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing following the Jingnan campaign, making it the most important defensive barrier in all of China, as it shielded the heartland region around the imperial capital. The pass' strategic location dictated that without mounting a costly direct siege, the only way an invading army can get past the pass' defense was to circumvent it around the north through a few treacherously narrow mountain passes deep within the Yan Mountains, which would make it very difficult to maintain supply lines and thus any sizeable invasions. This defensive significance therefore earned the pass the famous nickname "Greatest Pass Under Heaven" (天下第一关).