Tenured Professor at
The Open University of Japan

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Nationwide map illustrating population trends from 1995-2010
※click on the map to open an enlarged version

The distribution of cities for each of the five types is as follows: Among the 52 Consistent Increase cities, 23 exhibited greater degrees of change, whereas the remaining 29 showed less change. Among the 32 Consistent Decrease cities, 22 demonstrated greater changes, whereas 10 illustrated smaller changes. Other types comprised 34 cities. Overall, cities demonstrating remarkable growth and those cities exhibiting drastic declines each comprised about 20% of the nation’s urban areas, whereas about 30% of the cities experienced slight but steady increases in populations, another 30% of the cities had fluctuating populations, and about 10% of the cities experienced slow declines in populations.．

The maps are enlarged regionally below.．

In Hokkaido, only Sapporo’s population consistently increased. Except for Ebetsu in the suburbs of Sapporo, all other cities show a consistently decreasing population. The aggregation of population at Sapporo is clearly visible．

In Tohoku, only Sendai and Fukushima show evidence of slight, albeit consistently increasing, population. Except for at Yamagata and Koriyama, the populations of other cities consistently decreased．

In the Hokuriku Shin-etu area, populations fluctuated at Niigata, Nagano, and Kanazawa, whereas other centers experienced consistent decreases．
In the northern part of the Kanto area, the only cities where populations consistently declined were Maebashi, Sayama, and Odawara. In the Tokai area, Kofu, Numazu, Shimizu, and Gifu were the only cities where population numbers consistently declined. Particularly notable are higher rates of increases experienced in the cities around Toyota vs. those near Nagoya.

In Kansai, Wakayama experienced consistent declines in population, whereas Osaka/Kobe and Kyoto showed consistent, albeit slight increases. On this basis, the population increases at Otsu and Kusatsu are conspicuous.
In Chugoku, in the Seto Inland area around the Pacific coastal belts, only Shimonoseki and Shunan demonstrated consistent decreases in population, and on the Pacific side only Tottori experienced consistent decreases in population.
In Shikoku, Matsuyama experienced an increasing population whereas Tokushima was of the consistently decreasing type. Takamatsu and Kochi show evidence of fluctuating populations．

In Kyushu, the populations of Fukuoka, Kurume, Oita, Kumamoto, and Kagoshima consistently increased, whereas the populations of Sasebo, Nagasaki, and Kitakyushu exhibited a contrasting pattern and populations of Saga, Beppu, and Miyazaki saw fluctuations.

Finally, in Okinawa, both Okinawa and Naha experienced consistent increases in population．

Assessing Dual Dimensions of Population Change

From the above trend analysis, which characteristics describe the changes in population of cities across Japan?

Firstly, considering the country as a whole, many cities in the Pacific coastal belt zone have expanded their populations relatively steadily, whereas populations continue to decrease in Tohoku and Hokkaido on the Japan Sea side.

Additionally, in comparison with most other metropolitan areas, Tokyo experienced higher rates of a consistently increasing population, whereas Osaka/Kobe and Nagoya showed slightly lower rates of growth. In this sense, Fukuoka exhibited the same rate of increase as Tokyo.

Next, what kinds of features can be seen in each region?

In Hokkaido, the population concentration of Sapporo presents a remarkable contrast with the decreasing populations of other cities．

The case of Tohoku is similar to that of Hokkaido in that, except for Fukushima and Koriyama which are relatively close to Tokyo, most cities have consistently declined in population, although fluctuations have occurred at Sendai and Morioka. Because this analysis ends at 2010, the situation since 3/11, aka the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, is not reflected here．

In Chubu and Hokuriku Shin-etsu area, most cities, including Kofu and Gifu, experienced consistently decreasing populations, and only Nagano, Kanazawa, and Niigata escaped this trend. Similar circumstances characterized the Sea of Japan side of Chugoku District.

Many cities in the Pacific Coastal Belt zone avoided decline, and in the case of Kanto, most cities, particularly Tokyo, experienced consistent increases in population．

In the Tokai region, consistent declines in population only occurred in a few cities, whereas the situation remained good in Toyota, Anjo/Kariya/Chiryu, Okazaki, and Handa, showing an increased rate of growth over that of Nagoya. The presence of TOYOTA, a global automobile company, might have a great influence on population in this area．

Other than Wakayama, no cities show consistent decreases in population, and it is particularly notable that the cities of Otsu and Kusatsu near the Nagoya area increased their populations at a greater rate than did those of Osaka/Kobe and Kyoto. Except for Shimonoseki and Shunan on the Seto Inland Sea side, no cities in the Chugoku area showed consistent declines in population．

In Shikoku, each of the four prefectures has one city and each maintains a moderate distance from one other. However, Tokushima, which is close to the Kansai region, experienced consistent decreases in population, whereas in contrast, Matsuyama’s population consistently increased.

In Kyushu, moderate populations were maintained in Kumamoto, Oita, Beppu, Miyazaki, and Kagoshima, which are far from Fukuoka. Similar to Sapporo in Hokkaido, Fukuoka experienced a high rate of consistent population growth, whereas Kitakyushu, Nagasaki, and Sasebo, which are relatively close to Fukuoka, exhibited population declines, and only Kurume showed an increasing population．

The final thing to note is that in Okinawa Prefecture, Okinawa and Naha cities experienced consistent population growth at rates that exceeded the national average．