The statistic shows the population of the Greater Tokyo Area from 1950 to 2015, with a projection up to 2030. In 2015, the population of the Greater Tokyo Area stood at about 37.3 million and was estimated to maintain that level until 2020.

Chart and table of population level and growth rate for the Tokyo, Japan metro area from 1950 to 2025.

The statistic presents the population density in the Greater Tokyo Area in Japan from 1985 to 2015. In 1985, Greater Tokyo's population amounted to 2,240 inhabitants per square kilometer. This number increased to almost 2,700 inhabitants per square kilometer in 2015.

As of October 1, 2015, the commuting population in Japan's Greater Tokyo Area amounted to approximately 22.25 million people, representing the metropolitan area with the most commuters. Since 2000, the commuting population has successively decreased in each region.

As of 2020, about 29 percent of the population in Japan was concentrated in the Greater Tokyo Area. The three metropolitan areas Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya, accounted for around 53 percent of the Japanese population.

Japan’s largest city, greater Tokyo, had a staggering 37.19 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 33 million inhabitants. Contrastingly, approximately 410 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.

Chart and table of population level and growth rate for the Osaka, Japan metro area from 1950 to 2025.

In 2024, the average land price in Japan amounted to around 217.1 thousand Japanese yen per square meter. The average land price is based on land price surveys conducted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism and prefectural governments in January and July each year. Japan’s geography The Japanese archipelago consists of the five main islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku, and Okinawa in addition to thousands of smaller islands. Together, they cover a surface area of around 378 thousand square kilometers. Three-quarters of the country’s land area is covered by mountains. Forestland and farmland constitute about 78 percent of its landmass, while developed land accounts for five percent. The population of 124 million is concentrated in major cities like Tokyo, which is home to over nine million inhabitants. Urban-rural divide and land prices Owing to an overconcentration of economic activity in Tokyo and other major cities like Osaka and Nagoya, more than half of the population is located in three metropolitan areas. Tokyo and its surrounding prefectures that comprise the Tokyo metropolitan area attract many people from other parts of the country each year, often young individuals seeking jobs or starting university. In contrast, rural regions are confronted with depopulation and economic stagnation. Japan’s urban-rural divide is also reflected in land prices. Tokyo has by far the most expensive land prices. In terms of land price growth, the cities of Sapporo, Sendai, Hiroshima, and Fukuoka have outpaced the Greater Tokyo Area in the past decade.

In 2022, the total population of the Guangdong - Hong Kong - Macao Greater Bay Area reached around 86.6 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.

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.

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 137 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 136 billion dollars.

Scarce office space

The population of the Greater Tokyo Area is home to more than 37 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 14 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.

In 2024, the surface area of the Japanese archipelago totaled around 378 thousand 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.

As of March 17, 2022, the highest number of approximately 1.2 million patients with coronavirus (COVID-19) were confirmed in Tokyo Prefecture in Japan, followed by Osaka Prefecture with about 747.9 thousand people. On that day, all prefectures out of 47 reported new infection cases.

 Tokyo and Kanagawa  The first coronavirus case in Japan was confirmed on January 16, 2020, in Kanagawa prefecture. Part of the Greater Tokyo Area, Kanagawa is the country’s second-most populous prefecture with more than nine million inhabitants. A few days after the first case in Kanagawa, Japan’s second case was reported in Tokyo. Kanagawa and Tokyo, along with Osaka, and four other prefectures, were the first to be placed under a state of emergency by then prime minister Shinzo Abe in April 2020. From the outbreak of COVID-19 until March 2022, the state of emergency was announced four times for Tokyo and three times for Kanagawa Prefecture.

 Osaka Osaka prefecture reported its first case of COVID-19 on January 29, 2020. The prefecture is the center of Japan’s second-most populated urban region, the Keihanshin metropolitan area, which includes Kyoto and Hyogo prefectures. The virus continued to spread in Osaka with the acceleration of new infection cases per day recorded in January, April to May, July to September in 2021, and January and onwards in 2022.

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