TOKYO: Japan’s total population, including foreigners, fell by 868,177 in the past five years, results of the national census survey conducted last year showed Friday. 

Japan’s population as of Oct. 1, 2020, stood at 126,226,568, the internal affairs ministry said in a preliminary report.

The figure has continued to slide since the 2015 survey, which showed the country’s first population decrease since the census began in 1920.

But the rate of decline was smaller, at 0.7 percent, than the drop of 0.8 percent five years ago, reflecting an increase in the number of foreigners and the temporary return home of many Japanese citizens from abroad amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The population sank in 38 prefectures and rose in nine prefectures.

Tokyo and the neighboring prefectures of Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa accounted for about 30 percent of the country’s population, highlighting the increasing concentration of people in the Tokyo metropolitan area. The area’s combined population increased by some 800,000 people to about 36.93 million.

The population of men stood at 61,360,014, while that of women came to 64,866,554.

According to United Nations statistics, Japan became the 11th most populous country in the world, ceding last year’s 10th place to Mexico. This is the first time for Japan to slip from the top 10 list since comparable data became available in 1950. The country was once placed as high as fifth in the world.

Tokyo had the highest population among Japan’s 47 prefectures, at 14,064,696, followed by Kanagawa, at 9,240,411, and the western prefecture of Osaka, at 8,842,523.

The eight most populous prefectures accounted for over half of the country’s population.

Tottori Prefecture, western Japan, was the least populous prefecture, with 553,847.

Tokyo had the highest rate of population increase, at 4.1 pct, beating the rate logged in 2015, followed by the southernmost prefecture of Okinawa, Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba, Aichi Prefecture in central Japan, Fukuoka Prefecture in southwestern Japan, Shiga Prefecture in western Japan and Osaka.

A total of 33 prefectures posted steeper rates of population decline than five years before, with Akita Prefecture in northeastern Japan marking the sharpest drop, at 6.2 percent.

A total of 1,416 municipalities, or 82.4 percent of the total in Japan, logged drops in their populations, with the rate of decline reaching 5 pct or more in 50.9 percent of municipalities, compared with 48.5 percent in 2015.

The number of households jumped 4.2 pct to 55,719,562, reflecting an increase in single-member households. The average number of people per household hit a record low of 2.27.

“While the coronavirus is a unique factor for 2020, the survey results reflected the concentration of people (in Tokyo) through 2019,” the internal affairs ministry said, referring to an outflow of people from Tokyo amid the novel coronavirus epidemic.

The release of the preliminary 2020 census report was delayed from the initially planned February after the survey period was extended due to the coronavirus crisis. A revised report will come out in November.

The ministry also said that 37.9 percent of census respondents in 2020 gave answers over the internet, up 1.0 percentage point from 2015, failing to reach its goal of raising the figure to 50 percent.

Mailed responses accounted for 42.3 percent, up 8.2 points, while the remaining 19.8 pct of respondents handed their responses directly to census staff.

JIJI Press