2 million foreigners in Japan

There are now nearly 2 million foreigners living in Japan. The Immigration Bureau released a report last week saying that there are 1,973,747 registered foreign nationals resident in Japan, representing 1.55% of the population. The Japanese government has a very strict definition of “foreigner” — many of these 2 million people were born and raised in Japan, but are still counted as foreign nationals.

Half the total is made up of Chinese and Koreans, with South America and the Philippines providing most of the rest. The percentage of foreigners in Tokyo was much higher — in Shibuya the proportion of foreigners was more than 5% when I last checked. Tokyo is more popular as a destination for people who move to Japan, as opposed to “foreigners” who were born in Japan.