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1. Total Population
Year 2000 census shows the total population of Japan as 126,925,843 persons.
- The current census shows that as of 1 October 2000, since the time of the 1995 census, the population of Japan had grown by 1,355, 597 people to 126,925,843, an increase of 1.1%. A declining rate of population increase has continued since 1980 and the decline over the previous 5 years was the greatest in any similar post-war period.
- Japan's population is 2.1% of the total world population of 6.06 billion. Japan is the ninth most populous nation after: China, 1.28 billion; India, 1.01 billion; the U.S.A., 280 million; Indonesia, 210 million; Brazil, 170 million; Russia, 150 million; Pakistan, 140 million; and Bangladesh, 140 million.
- The population density of Japan is 340 persons per square kilometer. Of all countries with populations of more than 10 million Japan has the fourth greatest population density after: Bangladesh, 954 persons/km2; Korea, 472 persons/km2; and The Netherlands, 388 persons/km2.
- Among the Japan's 47 major (prefectural level) administrative entities, the populations of ten are more than 3 million, ten are between 2 million and 3 million, and another twenty have more than 1 million people; seven have less than 1 million people.
- Locally, the greatest rate of population increase has been 4.3% Shiga Prefecture, followed by 3.5% in Okinawa Prefecture, 3.0% in Kanagawa Prefecture, 2.8% in Hyogo Prefecture, and 2.6% in Saitama Prefecture. Population growth was evident in 24 entities. Compared with increases in 34 entities during the previous five-year period, population increased in 10 fewer major administrative entities.
<- Population pyramid of Japan