Japan’s Population Drops by Record 3.09 M.: 2025 Census

Tokyo, May 29 (Jiji Press)–Japan’s total population, including foreign residents, fell by a record 3,096,575 in the past five years, a national census survey conducted last year showed Friday. Japan’s population as of Oct. 1, 2025, stood at 123,049,524, the internal affairs ministry said in a preliminary report. The figure has fallen for the third straight quinquennial survey, beginning with the 2015 survey, which showed the country’s first population decrease since the census began in 1920. The pace of population decline accelerated from 0.7 pct in the 2020 survey to 2.5 pct. The ministry attributed the drop in the 2025 survey to a natural decrease in the population, meaning the number of deaths outpaced that of births. The population fell in 45 of the country’s 47 prefectures, excluding Tokyo and the southernmost prefecture of Okinawa. The prefectures of Saitama and Chiba, which neighbor Tokyo, logged population declines for the first time since the start of the census and Kanagawa Prefecture, located south of Tokyo, and the central Japan prefecture of Aichi, home to the major city of Nagoya, marked first population falls since the end of World War II, signaling that urban areas are also experiencing declines even as the overconcentration of people in Tokyo continues. Tokyo had the largest population among all prefectures, at 14,246,219, followed by Kanagawa, at 9,193,657, and the western prefecture of Osaka, at 8,764,578. The eight most populous prefectures accounted for over half of the country’s population. Tottori Prefecture in western Japan had the smallest population, at 523,732. The population growth rates stood at 1.4 pct for Tokyo and 0.1 pct for Okinawa, both lower than in the 2020 census. Akita Prefecture saw the largest population decline at 8.1 pct, and 39 prefectures saw steeper drops than the previous survey. A total of 1,558 municipalities in Japan, or 90.6 pct of the total, recorded decreases in their populations, with the rate of decline reaching 10 pct or more in 27.7 pct of all municipalities, compared with 14.3 pct in 2020. The population of men stood at 59,778,826, while that of women came to 63,270,698. According to United Nations estimates, Japan was the 12th most populous country in the world, down from 11th place in 2020. The number of households rose 2.3 pct to 57,124,507, reflecting an increase in single-person households. The average number of people per household hit a fresh record low of 2.15. The ministry also said that 47.3 pct of census respondents in 2025 gave answers on the internet, up 9.4 percentage points from 2020. The proportion overtook that of respondents via mail, down 8.5 points to 33.4 pct, for the first time since online responses began in the 2015 survey, but failed to reach the ministry’s goal of raising the figure to 50 pct. The remaining 19.3 pct of respondents handed their responses directly to census staff. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]