Preface to the Special Issue on the 8th Japan-Korea-China Joint Conference on Geography

Japan-Korea-China Joint Conference on Geography 2013 opened at Hakozaki campus of Kyushu University on July 31, and drew to a successful close in Kyoto on August 5, after the 2 day academic session and the 2 days of excursion. It was the 8th conference since the first conference in Beijing, China in 2006 and the third conference that was held in Japan after the Kumamoto conference in 2007 and the Sendai conference in 2010. The details of this conference are reported by the secretary-generals, Konno Ena and Norito Takashi in the pages that follow. We have accepted the challenges of academic exchanges and the development of young East Asian geographers through a series of conferences in Japan, Korea and China. At the 5th meeting in Sendai we instituted the Young Geographer Award and have continued to encourage young geographers for their outstanding achievements since then. The award winners are selected from young geographers who submitted the prescribed proceedings before the conference through the screening process. The three winners were announced at the closing ceremony of the last conference on August 2. The winners and their presentation titles are as follows: (Alphabetical order)