Japan is an island country in East Asia located in the northwest Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by the Sea of Japan to the west and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. Part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, Japan comprises an archipelago of 6852 islands covering 377,975 square kilometers (145,937 sq mi); the country's five main islands, from north to south, are Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa.

The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Situated in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of about 7,641 islands that are broadly categorized under three main geographical divisions from north to south - Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao. Bounded by the South China Sea to the west, the Philippine Sea to the east, and the Celebes Sea to the southwest, the Philippines shares maritime borders with Taiwan to the north, Japan to the northeast, Palau to the east, Indonesia to the south, Malaysia and Brunei to the southwest, Vietnam to the west, and China to the northwest.