Calculated from the population and area above; their reference dates may differ.
On a familiar scale
≈ 10.4 × Taiwan
The closest rung on the Taiwan reference ladder; see the sources below.
Land per resident
3,053 m² of land per resident
The inverse of population density, from the same area and population figures.
The outline is fitted to this frame, not a map for measuring distances. Outlying islands may make the main landmass appear smaller.
Taking out the land nobody lives on
How much of the land is actually built on?
Japan
19,900 km²5.3% of all land
≈ 55% of Taiwan
6,221 people per km² 19 times the territory-wide average
Takuchi, building land, in the land ministry’s land-use survey: land occupied by buildings plus the land needed to maintain them or serve their purpose. It is the sum of residential land, industrial sites and other building land. Roads are reported as a separate category and are not included here, because that category mixes urban streets with farm and forest tracks. Forest accounts for about two thirds of the country and agricultural land for a further tenth, and an unclassified residual absorbs airports, railway land and parks, so some genuinely developed land sits outside this figure.
On the other defensible cut (building land plus roads): 34,000 km², 9%
Total population estimate and national territory area.
Average administrative density does not describe population distribution in every neighborhood. Compare population definitions and reference dates alongside the numbers.
Place guide
How should this Japan profile be read?
Japan is a long national archipelago whose total land and population are both much larger than Taiwan’s. Its outline is especially useful for showing why north–south reach cannot be understood from area alone.
How to read the national total
The page uses Japan’s national territory and estimated total population, not the built-up area of its major cities. Hokkaido, the main islands and remote islands remain part of the geographic total.
National density therefore should not be substituted for Tokyo density. It is a country-scale baseline for comparing total land per resident.
Best comparisons
Compare Japan with Taiwan for country scale, or move to Okinawa, Miyako and Ishigaki when the question concerns a particular island region.
Separating those levels prevents a national population from being paired with a local island outline.