As of October 1, 2015, the commuting population in Japan's Greater Tokyo Area amounted to approximately ***** million people, representing the metropolitan area with the most commuters. Since 2000, the commuting population has successively decreased in each region.

Saitama Prefecture, one of the few landlocked prefectures in Japan, is located north of Tokyo in the Kanto region of Honshu. It is considered to be a part of the Greater Tokyo Metropolitan Area, and many of its residents commute to Tokyo daily, making Saitama Prefecture's economy largely dependent on Tokyo. The population of Saitama Prefecture is 7.19 million. Much of Saitama's population lives in its larger cities; Saitama City, the capital, Soka, Misato, as well as many other smaller cities. Many Tokyoites travel to Saitama for shopping. Costco, Lalaport, IKEA and one of the largest shopping malls in Japan, Koshigaya LakeTown are all located in Saitama.

Japan’s largest city, greater Tokyo, had a staggering ***** million inhabitants in 2023, making it the most populous city across the Asia-Pacific region. India had the second largest city after Japan with a population consisting of approximately ** million inhabitants. Contrastingly, approximately *** thousand inhabitants populated Papua New Guinea's largest city in 2023. A megacity regionNot only did Japan and India have the largest cities throughout the Asia-Pacific region but they were among the three most populated cities worldwide in 2023. Interestingly, over half on the world’s megacities were situated in the Asia-Pacific region. However, being home to more than half of the world’s population, it does not seem surprising that by 2025 it is expected that more than two thirds of the megacities across the globe will be located in the Asia Pacific region. Other megacities are also expected to emerge within the Asia-Pacific region throughout the next decade. There have even been suggestions that Indonesia’s Jakarta and its conurbation will overtake Greater Tokyo in terms of population size by 2030. Increasing populationsIncreased populations in megacities can be down to increased economic activity. As more countries across the Asia-Pacific region have made the transition from agriculture to industry, the population has adjusted accordingly. Thus, more regions have experienced higher shares of urban populations. However, as many cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Seoul have an aging population, this may have an impact on their future population sizes, with these Asian regions estimated to have significant shares of the population being over 65 years old by 2035.

As of 2025, Tokyo-Yokohama in Japan was the largest world urban agglomeration, with 37 million people living there. Delhi ranked second with more than 34 million, with Shanghai in third with more than 30 million inhabitants.

In 2023, the total population of the Guangdong - Hong Kong - Macao Greater Bay Area reached around **** million. In terms of population, China's Greater Bay Area was larger than other major Bay Areas in the world. However, per capita GDP was only about half of that in the Tokyo Bay Area and only one seventh of that in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In 2025, the surface area of the Japanese archipelago totaled around 377,976 square kilometers, with Honshu accounting for over half of the surface size. The largest share of the population and businesses in Japan are concentrated in Honshu, particularly around the Greater Tokyo Area.

Out of the Japanese Fortune Global 500 companies, Honda Motor was the largest company headquartered in Tokyo in 2020. The ranking was based on annual revenue which in the case of Honda amounted to more than *** billion U.S. dollars. Mitsubishi was the second largest Japanese Fortune Global 500 company with its headquarters in Japan’s capital, generating an annual revenue of close to *** billion dollars.

Scarce office space

The population of the Greater Tokyo Area is home to more than ** million people and despite high rents has attracted many companies to set up their headquarters there. This has led to tight supply-demand conditions and a low annual average vacancy rate for office space. However, some building completions in recent years added supply to the office market in Tokyo. The total office space in the Tokyo Metropolitan area amounted to nearly ** thousand hectares as of 2019.

How to keep up with Hong Kong and Singapore

Although Tokyo is not only popular among Japanese companies, but also among global companies, it has recently been struggling to compete with even more attractive Asian cities, such as Singapore or Hong Kong. Possible measures to satisfy the world’s business elites include improving Tokyo’s infrastructure, simplifying procedures for setting up businesses and inviting competitive international schools.