The Japan Meteorological Agency is one of the external bureaus of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism of Japan, and was established under the Meteorological Business Law to monitor meteorological observations, earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunami hazards in Japan. After 2000, it is also responsible for the international numbering and naming of tropical cyclones generated on the North Pacific Ocean surface west of the international sunset line by the World Meteorological Organization to tropical storms or above.