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The story
According to finalized figures from the 2025 national census released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Mie Prefecture’s total population stood at 1,693,200, down 4.4%—about 77,000 people—from the previous 2020 census. This marks the fourth consecutive decline since the population peaked in 2005, with only two municipalities, Asahi and Kawagoe, seeing population growth. Meanwhile, the number of foreign residents hit a record high, with Vietnamese nationals standing out among the various nationalities. On 5ch, threads mixed voices linking the rise in foreign residents to debates over immigration policy with others pointing out that Mie’s actual foreign resident ratio is only around 4%—”not as high as I expected”—and the discussion spread to population trends and local topics in other prefectures.
Finalized figures from last year’s national census have been released, showing that Mie Prefecture’s population declined compared to the previous census six years earlier, while the number of foreign residents living in the prefecture reached a record high.
According to the finalized census figures released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Mie Prefecture’s total population as of October 1 last year was approximately 1,693,200, down 4.4%—about 77,000 people—from the 2020 census, marking the fourth consecutive decline since the population peaked in the 2005 census.
By municipality, only Asahi and Kawagoe towns saw population increases compared to the previous census, while the remaining 27 municipalities in the prefecture saw declines.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Gifu's got a lot too, though.
Sasagawa housing complex has had Brazilian shops since way back.
But it's kind of unlucky—some people get to live in the Tokyo area after coming all the way to Japan, while others end up stuck in a place like Mie.
Well, even within Mie, it's probably mid-to-upper tier by national standards.
You can get to both Nagoya and Osaka from there.
Plus there are a ton of AEON Malls even by rural standards—it's basically 'AEON Prefecture.'
Japanese people are bound to end up jobless and out on the streets, squeezed out by foreigners and AI.
And then they'll definitely start pushing 'give voting rights to foreigners who've contributed!'
Then foreign lawmakers increase and it's game over starting from local government.
Mie's got 1.6 million, but once you factor in the immigrant rate, your image of the place might change.
Immigrant rate's 4%.
Not as high as I thought.
Japan's population falls below 120 million for the first time in 42 years… down 910,000 to 119.73 million, while foreign residents rose by 350,000
https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/politics/20260729-GYT1T00324/
Japan's population falls below 120 million for the first time in 42 years… down 910,000 to 119.73 million, while foreign residents rose by 350,000 ★2 [Gure★]
https://asahi.5ch.io/test/read.cgi/newsplus/1785323985/
Well, the population's basically guaranteed to plummet from here on because of the low birthrate and aging society.
By 2070 it's projected to be 87 million, and it'll likely keep falling after that.
The land itself is just going to go to ruin.
Everyone just mindlessly funnels people into Tokyo, so of course the young ones leave.
Yeah, that's exactly what you'd expect to happen.
I asked an AI for estimated figures:
・Foreign resident ratio among people in their 70s: 0.5%
・Foreign resident ratio among people in their 20s: 19%
At this rate the replacement will happen fast, and Japanese people will become the minority.
A Vietnamese mayor's gonna show up eventually at this rate.
・Kanagawa Prefecture's population falls for 4th straight year; 4 cities including Ebina see growth (Nikkei)
・Chiba Prefecture's estimated population falls for 4th straight year; foreign residents increase (Nikkei)
・Saitama Prefecture's population falls for 4th straight year; Warabi tops the growth rate (Nikkei)
・Ibaraki Prefecture's total population drops below 2.8 million, 23rd straight year of decline (Nikkei)
・Gunma Prefecture's population falls by 10,000 in one year, dropping below 1.87 million as of March 2026 (Jomo Shimbun)
・Tochigi Prefecture's population at 1,864,220, falling for 21 straight months (Shimotsuke Shimbun Digital)
・Aichi Prefecture's population drops below 7.5 million, 5th straight year of decline; foreign residents hit a record high of over 320,000 (Yomiuri Shimbun, 2025/08/07)
・Nagoya metro area sees net outflow of 9,561 people, 13th consecutive year of net outflow (Resident Registry Population Migration Report)
Wait, Osaka Prefecture's population is growing?
I thought it was just Osaka City.
First time in 6 years, lol, pretty pathetic.
◆Osaka Prefecture's population grows for first time in 6 years; net inflow of foreigners up by 10,000
(Nikkei, July 29, 2026)
According to the population dynamics survey based on the Basic Resident Register (as of January 1, 2026) released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications on the 29th,
Osaka Prefecture's total population, including foreign residents, grew for the first time in 6 years.
This was largely driven by a roughly 10,000-person increase in the net inflow of foreign residents (social increase) compared to the previous year.
Meanwhile, the natural population decrease (deaths exceeding births) was the largest in the country, reinforcing a structure where social increase is propping up the numbers.
Osaka Prefecture's total population rose by 3,365 from the previous year to 8,775,326—its first increase since 2020.
1. Hokkaido (231,572)
2. Hyogo (158,184)
3. Shizuoka (141,277)
4. Niigata (130,206)
5. Fukushima (115,487)
6. Hiroshima (105,054)
7. Aomori (92,618)
8. Aichi (88,612)
9. Iwate (83,721)
10. Gifu (81,609)
Would like to see the percentages too.
You're from the Kinki region speaking Kansai dialect (written here as '韓西弁', apparently a typo for 関西弁), so go to Kyoto or Osaka instead.
Don't come to Tokyo.
Go work at the Kioxia factory.
The Reiwa-era Kansai person comes to Tokyo, grabs all the good stuff, and once they've gotten what they came for, heads back to Kansai to live the easy life.
They don't stay in Tokyo forever.
Migrants to Tokyo by prefecture of origin
(income property survey, per 1,000 residents)
1st. Kanagawa (9.62)
2nd. Saitama (9.02)
3rd. Chiba (8.75)
4th. Yamanashi (6.25)
5th. Ibaraki (4.51)
6th. Miyagi (4.21)
7th. Tochigi (4.03)
8th. Gunma (3.81)
9th. Nagano (3.67)
10th. Okinawa (3.57)
…
16th. Osaka (3.03)🤷🏻
Northern Mie is like that all the time these days.
And the staff being foreign too—that's the thing.
That's finally shown up in my own neighborhood too.
The Mie dialect belongs to the Kansai-dialect family.
Gifu dialect is also close to Kansai.
It's just Nagoya, stuck in between, that's weirdly its own thing.
Though even within Aichi there are several different dialects.
Mie is part of the Kinki region, you know.
Background and Key Points of This Topic
Mie Prefecture’s population figures are based on the finalized national census results, which are more accurate than preliminary figures. The rise in foreign residents seen here isn’t unique to Mie—it overlaps with a nationwide trend of the Japanese population shrinking while the foreign population grows. Some thread comments expressed alarm about being ‘taken over,’ while others pointed out that the actual foreign resident ratio is only around 4%, making the gap between perception and reality a key point of debate. On what’s driving the population decline, some comments argued that the structural problem of young people leaving for urban areas is a bigger factor than changes in the foreign population. The article’s figure of roughly 14,000 Vietnamese nationals stands out, but the article doesn’t clarify what share that represents of the prefecture’s total foreign population or how it compares to other nationalities. Some comments also linked specific nationalities to crime, but no supporting statistics were presented, so it’s worth noting these claims are impressionistic rather than substantiated.
*This article was compiled by excerpting and summarizing the 5ch (News Flash+) thread “Mie Prefecture’s Population Drops by About 77,000; Foreign Residents Up 31.4% to Record High, Vietnamese Nationals Number About 14,000.”
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