In Tokai, Kinki, and Chugoku Shikoku regions the figures are 67 percent, 63 percent, and 68 percent, respectively.

FORBES: Reforming Japan's Socialized Agriculture (2)

" People in the Italian Apennines call them "brontidi" or thunder-like, and residents of Shikoku, Japan, have dubbed them "yan.

WSJ: Clintonville, Wis. Becomes a Real Boom Town

Voters in Tokushima, on the island of Shikoku, are fighting construction-ministry bureaucrats over a new dam for the nearby Yoshino river.

ECONOMIST: Japan

It is the second of three big bridges planned in the early 1970s to link Japan's main island of Honshu to Shikoku.

ECONOMIST: The bridge to nowhere in particular

"For non-Japanese, it's very peculiar for athletes to say they are sorry, " says Mitsunori Urushibara, a professor of sports philosophy at Shikoku Gakuin University.

CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia | The Agony of Defeat

Along with the Kitty images, the app describes local highlights such as cherry blossom viewing in Tokyo or udon noodles on the island of Shikoku.

FORBES: Hello Kitty, Japan's Newest Tour Guide

The museum also lures tourists to Otsuka's hometown on Shikoku Island.

FORBES: Michelangelos: Made in Japan

The official reason for the bridge is that it will bring all manner of new economic opportunities to the residents of Awaji and inhabitants on the much larger, and equally impoverished, island of Shikoku.

ECONOMIST: The bridge to nowhere in particular

The bridge will cut 80 minutes off the road-and-ferry journey from Kobe to Tokushima, one of the bigger towns on the island of Shikoku beyond Awaji, and will be something of a tourist attraction.

ECONOMIST: The bridge to nowhere in particular