Izukyu Corporation

Company History: The Izukyū Corporation (伊豆急行株式会社, Izu Kyūkō kabushiki gaisha, lit. "Izu Express Stock Company") is a private railroad company in Japan, and a subsidiary of the Tokyu Corporation. The company operates the Izu Kyūkō Line train service on Izu Peninsula in Shizuoka Prefecture, and has subsidiary operations involved in taxi and bus services, as well as real estate and leisure resort development and a cable television network The Tokyu Corporation began preliminary work on a train line connecting Itō Station, the terminus of the Japanese National Railways' Itō Line, with Shimoda, at the southern tip of the Izu Peninsula in 1956. A wholly owned subsidiary, the Itō-Shimoda Electric Railway Company (伊東下田電気鉄道株式会社, Itō-Shimoda Denkitetsudo K.K.) was created on April 11, 1959, and construction work on the new line began in February 1960. On February 20, 1961, the company changed its name to its current name of Izukyū Corporation. Actual train operation began at Itō Station on December 10, 1961, and a centralized traffic control center established at Itō in 1982. Izukyū Corporation was listed in the Second Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange from November 1, 1972. However, it was delisted on October 1, 2004 and returned to the status of a fully owned subsidiary of the Tokyu Corporation.

Brief History: Japan is an island nation in the Pacific Ocean with dense cities, imperial palaces, mountainous national parks and thousands of shrines and temples. Shinkansen bullet trains connect the main islands of Kyushu (with Okinawa's subtropical beaches), Honshu (home to Tokyo and Hiroshima’s atomic-bomb memorial) and Hokkaido (famous for skiing). Tokyo, the capital, is known for skyscrapers, shopping and pop culture.

Although legend has it that Japan was founded in 660BC, archaeologists agree that settlement in the Japanese archpelago dates back as far as 100,000 years. The Jomon Period (8000-c.300BC) is the earliest that has been studied. It is named after the 'jomon' or cord-marked pattern style of pottery of the period.