| Name | Country | Area | Population | Language |
| Japan | Japan | 377 819 km2 | 126 000 000 | Japanese |
Technical, gravel mountain roads
For the past ten years, Japanese manufacturers such as Toyota, Subaru, Mitsubishi and Suzuki have invested a lot in rallying so it was only normal that this country finally hosted a World Rally Championship event for the first time in 2004.
The region of Hokkaido had the honour of hosting the race. The itinerary of the 2004 edition included a completely new first leg and a revised version of leg two and three compared with the formerly named Rally Hokkaido. These modifications helped to introduce very fast and exciting special stages. Rally Japan is based in the city of Obihiro and the single service park is in Kita Aikoku.
The course configuration of Rally Japan is somewhat similar to the one used in Rally GB. However the weather conditions are usually much better than what we usually see during the British event.
With only its last two editions as part of the World Rally Championship, Rally Japan is one of the newest event on the WRC calendar. Petter Solberg (2004) and Marcus Gronholm (2005) are the first two winners of the Japanese event.
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