Countries
Key facts
- Capital
- Tokyo
- Region
- Asia, Eastern Asia
- Population
- 123,366,734 (2025)
- Area
- 377,835 km²
- Currency
- Japanese yen (JPY)
- Languages
- Japanese
- Calling code
- +81
- Internet domain
- .jp, .みんな
- ISO codes
- JP, JPN, 392
- Time zone
- UTC+9:00
- United Nations
- Member state
- Postal code pattern
- ###-#### (# = digit, @ = letter)
Land and position
Japan covers about 377,835 square kilometres. By area it ranks 63rd among the 250 countries and territories on this site. It is a little smaller than Zimbabwe and a little larger than Germany. It has no land border with any other country. Its centre lies at about 36° north, 138° east, in the northern hemisphere.
People
About 123 million people live in Japan (World Bank, 2025). That makes it the 12th most populous of the 246 places on this site with a figure, with about 1.5 percent of the world's people. On average there are 327 people to each square kilometre. About 92 percent of people live in towns and cities (World Bank, 2025). A baby born there can expect to live about 84 years (World Bank, 2024). Languages listed for it: Japanese. A person from Japan is called Japanese.
Money and economy
The currency is the Japanese yen (code JPY, symbol ¥). The World Bank puts the size of its economy (GDP) at about US$ 4.44 trillion (2025), which is about US$ 35,951 for each person (2025).
Time
Japan uses one time zone, UTC+9:00 (Asia/Tokyo). Clocks stay the same all year: there is no daylight saving time.
Time now: loading
Offsets are for January 2026. See Time Zones for a converter.
Largest cities
| City | People |
|---|---|
| Tokyo | 9,733,276 |
| Yokohama | 3,777,491 |
| Osaka | 2,753,862 |
| Nagoya | 2,332,176 |
| Sapporo | 1,973,832 |
| Fukuoka | 1,612,392 |
City figures are from GeoNames and count the city itself, not the wider urban area. They can be some years old, so use them to see the order of size.
More in Eastern Asia
China, Hong Kong, Macau, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan. See the whole region.
Figures were collected on 11 November 2026 from the World Bank, GeoNames and the open countries data set. See About and data sources. Borders and names follow those sources and do not express any view on disputed territory.