The city of Kyoto lies, surrounded by hills, in central Honshu, near the southwest end of Lake Biwa. Occupying an area of more than 230sq.mi/ 600sq.km in the south facing basin between the rivers Katsura to the west and Kamo to the east, it is Japan's fifth largest city, chief town of Kyoto prefecture and the educational
hub of western Japan, with several universities and higher educational establishments. Although it is one of Japan's great tourist Meccas, attracting more than ten million visitors every year, it has preserved much of the atmosphere of the past, having been the only one of Japan's major cities to escape damage during the Second World War. The climate of the Kyoto area shows marked differences between the seasons, with hot dry summers and relatively cold winters.
For almost 1,100 years, from 794 to 1868, Kyoto was the residence of the Emperor and in consequence Japan's principal cultural center, where architecture, sculpture, painting and many other arts achieved a magnificent flowering. At an early stage the arts came under strong Buddhist influence, and as a result many of the surviving works of art are to be found in the old temples. In our own day Kyoto continues to play a dominant part in Japanese religion: thirty of the city's temples are centers of various Buddhist sects, and in addition there are some 200 Shinto shrines within the city limits.
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