Japan's population down 7th straight year

Apr 14 (NHK) - A Japanese government survey shows the country's population continues to shrink and age.

The internal affairs ministry said on Friday that the total population, including foreign residents, was 126.7 million on October 1st last year.

That's a fall of 227,000 from the previous year, for a 7th straight year of decline.

By gender, there were about 61.65 million men and 65.05 million women.

People aged 65 or older accounted for a record-high 27.7 percent of the population.

The percentage of children under 15 fell to a record-low 12.3 percent.

The population in all but 7 of the country's 47 prefectures fell, with Akita marking the steepest decline of 1.4 percent. It was followed by Aomori and Iwate prefectures at 1.16 and 1.04 percent respectively.

Tokyo posted the highest population growth at 0.73 percent, followed by neighboring Saitama Prefecture at 0.28 percent, and the southern prefecture of Okinawa at 0.26 percent.

Source: ANNnewsCH

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