Honshu
Noun
ほんしゅう
この後、本州に行くつもりです。
After this I plan on going to Honshu.
本州とは、いったいぜんたい日本のどこにあるんですか？
Where the heck in Japan is Honshu?
本州がどこか分からなければ、パソコンでしらべたらどうですか？
If you don't know where Honshu is, why don't you look it up on your computer?
You have your origin state. For Japan (since this is a Japanese word), that would be the main island, the big one in the middle: Honshu. You'll have to know some minor Japanese geography for this. Go look at a map of Japan and study it over real quick to see where I'm talking about if you don't know already.
This is a jukugo word, which usually means on'yomi readings from the kanji. If you know the readings of your kanji you'll know how to read this as well.