The largest cities of Japan: urban units, municipalities and metro areas
Japan counted three ways: by continuous built-up area, by municipality and by metro area. 285 urban units pass 100,000 people; the largest is Setagaya, with 943,664. The city of Tokyo has 9,733,276 people within its limits; its metro area, 36,271,992.
How Japan counts its cities
Japan’s statistics office (e-Stat) publishes densely inhabited districts: contiguous areas of more than 4,000 people per km² and 5,000 people in all, drawn within each municipality. Tokyo’s 23 wards and its neighbours are therefore separate units: the largest is the ward of Setagaya. Tokyo’s metro area, on the other hand, is the largest in the world.
The 25 largest urban units
Source: e-Stat, densely inhabited districts, 2020 census.
| # | Urban unit | People | Area (km²) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Setagaya | 943,664 | 58 |
| 2 | Nerima | 752,608 | 48 |
| 3 | Ōta | 748,081 | 62 |
| 4 | Edogawa | 697,932 | 50 |
| 5 | Adachi | 695,043 | 53 |
| 6 | Funabashi | 606,337 | 59 |
| 7 | Suginami | 591,108 | 34 |
| 8 | Itabashi | 584,483 | 32 |
| 9 | Kawaguchi | 583,102 | 54 |
| 10 | Kōtō | 524,310 | 43 |
| 11 | Higashiōsaka | 492,760 | 49 |
| 12 | Ichikawa | 479,489 | 46 |
| 13 | Matsudo | 460,333 | 45 |
| 14 | Amagasaki | 459,593 | 51 |
| 15 | Katsushika | 453,093 | 35 |
| 16 | Nishinomiya | 439,756 | 38 |
| 17 | Shinagawa | 422,488 | 23 |
| 18 | Kagoshima | 421,466 | 67 |
| 19 | Machida | 409,438 | 48 |
| 20 | Matsuyama | 401,845 | 64 |
| 21 | Toyonaka | 401,558 | 36 |
| 22 | Hachiōji | 401,273 | 52 |
| 23 | Utsunomiya | 387,584 | 75 |
| 24 | Hirakata | 386,789 | 43 |
| 25 | Kanazawa | 386,142 | 67 |
The 10 largest municipalities and metro areas
| # | Municipality | People | Metro area | People |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tokyo | 9,733,276 | Tokyo | 36,271,992 |
| 2 | Yokohama | 3,777,491 | Osaka | 16,082,177 |
| 3 | Osaka | 2,753,862 | Nagoya | 9,640,128 |
| 4 | Nagoya | 2,332,176 | Fukuoka | 3,029,997 |
| 5 | Sapporo | 1,973,832 | Sapporo | 2,241,049 |
| 6 | Fukuoka | 1,612,392 | Takasaki | 2,046,321 |
| 7 | Kawasaki | 1,538,262 | Sendai | 1,653,794 |
| 8 | Kobe | 1,525,152 | Kitakyushu | 1,601,624 |
| 9 | Kyoto | 1,463,723 | Hiroshima | 1,532,765 |
| 10 | Saitama | 1,324,854 | Okayama | 1,363,676 |
Municipalities: GeoNames, latest census or estimate. Metro areas: GHSL functional urban areas. Metro areas are named after their main municipality, which is not always the best-known name of the area.
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