it's 4% the size of the US' land area. That's "small" to me.
"oh but genewitch the US is a huge country, you can't compare!"
i know. i wish people would remember that when discussing "policy."
edit: per the OP the EU is 50% the size of the US, in land area. So even put in that perspective, i don't consider Japan to be a "large" country. Yes, their population density is crazytown but "continent sized countries" japan is not a member of that set.