{"id":178796,"date":"2026-07-31T10:55:53","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T01:55:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/?post_type=news&p=178796&lang=en"},"modified":"2026-07-31T10:55:53","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T01:55:53","slug":"kyushu-okinawa-population-falls-below-14-million-as-foreign-resident-numbers-rise","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/en\/news\/kyushu-okinawa-population-falls-below-14-million-as-foreign-resident-numbers-rise\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyushu-Okinawa Population Falls Below 14 Million as Foreign Resident Numbers Rise"},"content":{"rendered":"

The combined population of Kyushu and Okinawa fell 0.62% year on year to 13.97 million as of January 1, 2026, according to a Basic Resident Register survey released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications on July 29. All eight prefectures recorded declines. Fukuoka had about 5.07 million residents, down 0.20%, followed by Kumamoto at 1.70 million, down 0.78%; Kagoshima at 1.54 million, down 1.13%; Okinawa at 1.48 million, down 0.01%; Nagasaki at 1.25 million, down 1.30%; Oita at 1.09 million, down 0.98%; Miyazaki at 1.03 million, down 1.18%; and Saga at 780,000, down 0.80%. The prefectural totals were rounded down to the nearest 10,000.
\nBy contrast, the region\u2019s foreign resident population increased 11.88% to 274,851, marking a second consecutive year of double-digit growth. Every prefecture exceeded the national increase of 9.62%. Fukuoka had the largest foreign population at 123,731, up 11.01%. Okinawa recorded the fastest growth, rising 14.36% to 32,912, followed by Oita at 13.90% to 22,656, Kagoshima at 13.57% to 21,221, Saga at 13.01% to 12,629, Miyazaki at 12.26% to 12,736, Nagasaki at 11.54% to 17,215, and Kumamoto at 9.93% to 31,751. Miyakojima City posted a 25.16% increase, while Kitsuki, Usuki, and Nakatsu recorded growth in the 20\u201330% range. Source:<\/strong> Nikkei<\/a> \/ Nishinippon Shimbun<\/a><\/p>\n

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\nPhoto: Fukuoka Now (For image purposes only)<\/p>\n

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Summaries based on public content, errors may occur during translation. Images credited independently. Send feedback using this form<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The combined population of Kyushu and Okinawa fell 0.62% year on year to 13.97 million as of January 1, 2026, according to a Basic Resident Register survey released…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30292,"featured_media":178797,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","tags":[],"class_list":["post-178796","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","location-kyushu","news-category-general","en-US"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/178796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178796"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fukuoka-now.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}