Population

The number of Japanese aged 20, the legal age of adulthood, on New Year's Day will be 1.25 million, up 20,000 from a year earlier, according to a government estimate released Monday. But new adults will make up only 0.99 percent of the total population ...

The figures reveal the difficulty of the government’s goal of raising the total fertility rate amid the population decline.

The number of households in areas designated as flood-prone by the central and local governments has soared 24.9 percent.

At the Tanner Hill apartments in Hong Kong, the residents — all aged 60-plus — are enjoying the ancient Chinese tile game of mahjong along with some bite-sized delicacies, dimsum, at one of the on-site restaurants. Each of the 588 units comes with wheelchair-height kitchen ...

As 1.4 million people move to cities each week, local abilities to keep residents safe can become strained, increasing the risk of disasters, warned the United Nations secretary-general. "The answer is to build resilience to storms, floods, earthquakes, fires, pandemics and economic crises," said Antonio ...

The government is considering allowing blue-collar foreign workers with certain skills to live permanently in the country with their families, as Japan struggles with a serious labor shortage amid a declining population, sources said Thursday. In what would represent a turning point for the country's ...

What about if Japan split into a confederation of five semi-autonomous "regions," each delineated roughly by geography and population?

The figure rose 2,014 from the previous year, marking the 48th consecutive yearly increase, and represented a nearly sevenfold jump from two decades ago.

In early August, as much of the country suffered through some of its hottest temperatures on record, a small town in Hokkaido welcomed visitors from around the world to an annual photography festival that celebrated the outdoors. Under sunny skies and low humidity, with the ...