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The story
An international comparison based on Universal Postal Union (UPU) and World Bank data has found that Japan’s post offices are packed roughly four times as densely, relative to land area, as those in the UK, Germany, and France, and about twice as densely as South Korea’s. As of the end of fiscal 2024, Japan had 23,466 operating post offices. The Asahi Shimbun reported on this uneven distribution and on how the political debate over consolidating post offices has become such a taboo that it’s “too scary to even bring up.” On 5ch, discussion ranged widely — from doubts about whether comparing post offices to elementary schools even makes sense, to the reality that post offices serve as a lifeline for elderly residents in depopulated areas, to the hereditary nature of local “special post offices” and the ties between the national postmasters’ association and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) that keep consolidation from moving forward.
Calculating how densely post offices are packed into livable areas across the G7 nations plus South Korea (eight countries total), Japan stands out by far. Its density is roughly four times that of the UK, Germany, and France, and about twice that of South Korea. Behind this lies a uniquely Japanese circumstance: any discussion of consolidating post offices is treated almost like a taboo.
The comparison was calculated by dividing each country’s number of post offices by its land area, using data from the Universal Postal Union (UPU) and the World Bank.
According to the UPU’s most recent report, Japan has 23,466 post offices (as of the end of fiscal 2024, operating locations only). That works out to 64 post offices per 1,000 square kilometers of land area — the highest figure among the eight countries.
Source: asahi.com / Original article here
What people said
I wonder if it's tied to who owns the land and building rights.
In Tokyo and places like that, they're all run by like the fourth or fifth generation of the same family since the Meiji era, right?
Basically, village headmen (shōya) who couldn't make a living after the postwar land reform turned their estates into post offices.
Fair point.
If you're going to compare it to something, it should normally be greengrocers or fish shops.
I guess they're scattered everywhere for the sake of pensioners?
This only means something if you compare it at the same scale as London, Berlin, or Paris.
Do you not get the point of this thread?
Honestly, I can't even tell if this map is showing post offices or just mailboxes lol
That's the area with the highest daytime population in Japan, so isn't that just to be expected?
Okay then, here's Kofu:
Surely these were built before privatization… right?
That search result probably includes mailboxes too.
and post offices reach every last mountain hamlet, all the way to the edges of nowhere.
"Simple post offices," I think they're called? A lot of them are run like little private general stores.
But in truly dying villages, a lot of the post offices have been closed down or suspended.
Schools are shutting down too, which is kind of depressing to see.
Like, "open only Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons"…
On top of that, with everything going digital, postcards and New Year's cards are declining, so of course post offices feel like there are too many.
We're in an era of population decline — just keep consolidating them.
But when I actually use one, I end up waiting quite a while.
They need to streamline operations before consolidating — if they just cut the numbers, wait times are going to get brutal.
Postal money orders (yūbin kogawase) are going to disappear too, you know.
Ikuta from Mitsui tried to reform it, but got crushed.
Basically like franchised mom-and-pop shops?
The National Association of Postmasters — the group representing the old "special post offices" (now called "area management offices") — backs the LDP, so if the party pushed for consolidation, it would lose votes.
Rural areas definitely do, though.
That's because old folks need them for chatting.
Seriously, if you cut that out, things could be way more efficient.
Rambling old-timers tie up the staff way too much.
Granted, it's my own fault for forgetting the password and not having the old personal seal (inkan) anymore.
When they looked it up, turns out I'd opened it in an area I only lived in for one year, about 25 years ago.
Now it's even more of a mystery.
I've got a Yucho account my parents opened for me, but I have no idea about it either, so I've just left it alone.
There's probably nothing in it anyway.
They don't handle deliveries, and they don't keep much cash on hand either.
Their main business is probably opening postal savings accounts for foreigners, insurance consultations for the elderly, and the ATM.
Even depopulated areas need financial services.
Are you saying just use an app? In the countryside, when the nearby post office shuts down,
there are a lot of elderly people for whom even walking there is a struggle.
What about updating your passbook, huh? Megabanks are never going to move into places that aren't profitable.
Nobody's saying get rid of them — if it's "consolidate them," that makes sense, right?
and on top of that there's been on-and-off talk of restricting elderly people's ATM use.
So I'd at least like the post office to stay close by — ironic as that catch is.
Can't you just use a convenience store ATM?
The nearest convenience store is 30 minutes away by car. Use your imagination.
My nearest convenience store is 50km away (not counting small rural chains like Y-Shop and Zen-Nisshoku).
Background and Key Points of the Debate
The uneven density of post offices traces back to the 2007 privatization of Japan Post, which converted it into a joint-stock company — but since the government still holds a majority of its shares, “full privatization” was never actually completed. Many of the so-called “special post offices” (now called “area management offices”) have been run for generations by prominent local families dating back to the Meiji era, and the group representing their operators, the National Association of Postmasters, is known as a powerful support base for the LDP — a structure that, as commenters pointed out, makes any push toward consolidation politically costly at election time. At the same time, in depopulated areas the post office is effectively the only financial access point left, making it a challenge to balance efficiency with public service. Commenters also raised plenty of doubts about how the original article framed its numbers — questioning the comparison to elementary schools itself, and noting that the scale of the image comparisons wasn’t consistent across countries — so the discussion went well beyond a simple “too many vs. too few” debate.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “More Post Offices Than Elementary Schools, ¥65 Billion a Year — Consolidation a Topic ‘Too Scary to Even Mention’.”
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