Advertisement
Over 1 in 25 Tokyo residents are now foreign as Japan population tumbles for 14th year in a row
- More than 580,000 of a record 2.99 million foreign nationals now living in Japan call the capital home, according to new government data
- Meanwhile, the number of Japanese residents fell for the first time ever in all 47 of the country’s prefectures, the data showed
Reading Time:2 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
4
The number of Japanese people in Japan has decreased at the fastest pace ever while the number of foreign residents has risen to a record of nearly 3 million, government data showed on Wednesday.
The data showed that Japanese society is ageing across the country and suggests that foreign nationals are playing an ever bigger role in making up for the shrinking population.
The number of Japanese nationals fell for a 14th year, by about 800,000 people, to 122.42 million, according to resident registration data as of January 1, 2023, released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
For the first time, the number of Japanese residents fell in all 47 prefectures, the data showed.
02:20
Japan rolls out ‘last-chance’ efforts to curb population decline
Japan rolls out ‘last-chance’ efforts to curb population decline
The number of foreign nationals living in Japan was a record 2.99 million, a 10.7 per cent increase from the previous year, the biggest year-on-year increase since the ministry began tracking the data a decade ago.
As of January 1, 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic spread around the world, there were 2.87 million foreigners living in Japan.
Advertisement