Japan's 9 Million Empty Homes, Mapped | What the Official Survey Actually Counts

Japan had 9,002,000 empty homes on 1 October 2023 — 13.8% of all housing, the highest ever recorded, according to the Statistics Bureau of Japan's 2023 Housing and Land Survey (final results, September 2024). But the survey sorts empty homes into four kinds, and only one of them looks like the "abandoned house" headlines. What this video covers, with our own maps and charts drawn from the official tables: ・How the survey counts empty homes (a sample survey, rounded to 1,000 homes) ・The four kinds: for rent (4.4 million), for sale, second homes, and the "fourth kind" (3.9 million) ・Apartments vs detached houses ・Every prefecture on the map: the share of empty homes (Tokushima 21.3% to Saitama 9.3%) ・Why Tokyo has the most empty homes but one of the lowest shares ・The fourth kind only: Kagoshima 13.6%, Tokyo 2.6% ・Thirty years of empty homes, and 1.16 homes per household ・What the survey does not say: prices, "free houses", and the limits of the numbers ■ Sources (checked 25 Oct 2026) ・Statistics Bureau of Japan, 2023 Housing and Land Survey: Basic Tabulation on Dwellings and Households, Final Results — Summary (in Japanese; 25 Sep 2024). Prefecture table: appendix, p. 14. National series: Tables 1 and 2-1: https://www.stat.go.jp/data/jyutaku/2... ・Statistics Bureau of Japan, 2023 Housing and Land Survey — results page: https://www.stat.go.jp/data/jyutaku/2... ■ Credits Voice: Kokoro TTS (hexgrad/Kokoro-82M, Apache 2.0). This video uses a synthetic voice. Maps: prefecture boundaries from Natural Earth (public domain), coloured with the official figures above. Charts: our own, from the official figures above. Photos (Wikimedia Commons): ・Akiya in Yanai 2026 — Kuroshio no Neko, CC BY 4.0: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... ・Akiya in Tabuse 2026 — Kuroshio no Neko, CC BY 4.0: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... ・Akiya in Hikari 2026 — Kuroshio no Neko, CC BY 4.0: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... ・Tokyo Apartment Block — Joe Pettersson, CC BY 3.0: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... ・Residential street in Shinjuku — Real Estate Japan, CC BY 2.0: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... ・Statistics Bureau of Japan — Abasaa, Public domain: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... ・Takesato Danchi 1 — あばさー, Public domain: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Music track: Memories by Lukrembo Music track: Daily by Lukrembo Music track: Every Day by Lukrembo Music track: Sunflower by Lukrembo Music track: Donut by Lukrembo Source: https://freetouse.com/music