The 47 Prefectures of Japan: Full List with Capitals and Population

Maps still label Japan with tidy blocks, yet the everyday word in English often swings between provinces, states, and prefectures. For today’s administration, the precise term is prefecture: forty-seven units that sit just below the national government, each with a governor, an assembly, and a capital city that organizes daily life from schools to roads.

The confusion is not random. Older provinces (kuni) left names that still flavor food, dialects, and train lines, while the modern map was rebuilt after the Meiji reforms. Below you get the full list—Japanese names, capitals, regions, population, and area—plus the small but useful difference between to, dō, fu, and ken.

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Prefectures, not provinces: to, dō, fu, and ken

Japan’s first-level divisions are collectively called todōfuken (都道府県). Functionally they work the same way, but the four suffixes carry historical weight:

• To (都) — Tokyo Metropolis (東京都). One metropolis for the capital area.
• Dō (道) — Hokkaidō (北海道). The only “circuit” prefecture, covering Japan’s northern island as a single unit.
• Fu (府) — Osaka and Kyōto. Two urban prefectures with deep commercial and imperial history.
• Ken (県) — the remaining forty-three prefectures proper, from Aomori to Okinawa.

In English travel writing, “province” still appears, but it usually points either to a lazy translation or to the historical provinces. When you book a train, fill a form, or read population rankings, prefecture is the word that matches how the country is governed today. For how cities, wards, and towns sit under these units, see the companion guide to the division of Japan into prefectures and cities.

The eight regions that frame the map

Prefectures are the legal layer; regions are the cultural and travel layer people actually use when planning a trip. There is no single “region government,” yet the eight-way split shows up in weather maps, rail passes, and food guides:

• Hokkaidō — Hokkaidō
• Tōhoku — Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, Akita, Yamagata, Fukushima
• Kantō — Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Saitama, Chiba, Tokyo, Kanagawa
• Chūbu — Niigata, Toyama, Ishikawa, Fukui, Yamanashi, Nagano, Gifu, Shizuoka, Aichi
• Kansai (Kinki) — Mie, Shiga, Kyōto, Osaka, Hyōgo, Nara, Wakayama
• Chūgoku — Tottori, Shimane, Okayama, Hiroshima, Yamaguchi
• Shikoku — Tokushima, Kagawa, Ehime, Kōchi
• Kyūshū (incl. Okinawa) — Fukuoka, Saga, Nagasaki, Kumamoto, Ōita, Miyazaki, Kagoshima, Okinawa

If you want the travel-oriented snapshot of climate, food, and routes by block, start with Japan’s 8 regions at a glance. Each prefecture also has its own flag and mon—handy when you spot symbols on local trains or product packaging; the gallery of Japanese prefecture flags unpacks those designs.

Full list of the 47 prefectures of Japan

The table below ranks prefectures by population (national census, 1 October 2025). Area is in square kilometers; density is people per km², rounded for readability. Capitals are the seats of prefectural government—not always the largest city in every everyday sense, but the administrative center used on official maps.

Prefecture	Japanese	Capital	Region	Population	Area (km²)	Density
Tokyo	東京都	Shinjuku	Kantō	14,246,219	2,194.03	6,493
Kanagawa	神奈川県	Yokohama	Kantō	9,193,657	2,416.11	3,805
Osaka	大阪府	Osaka	Kansai	8,764,578	1,905.32	4,600
Aichi	愛知県	Nagoya	Chūbu	7,449,403	5,173.07	1,440
Saitama	埼玉県	Saitama	Kantō	7,287,169	3,797.75	1,919
Chiba	千葉県	Chiba	Kantō	6,258,512	5,157.57	1,213
Hyōgo	兵庫県	Kōbe	Kansai	5,323,825	8,401.02	634
Fukuoka	福岡県	Fukuoka	Kyūshū	5,081,879	4,986.51	1,019
Hokkaidō	北海道	Sapporo	Hokkaidō	4,985,419	83,424.44	60
Shizuoka	静岡県	Shizuoka	Chūbu	3,468,845	7,777.35	446
Ibaraki	茨城県	Mito	Kantō	2,791,207	6,097.39	458
Hiroshima	広島県	Hiroshima	Chūgoku	2,683,399	8,479.65	316
Kyōto	京都府	Kyōto	Kansai	2,502,747	4,612.20	543
Miyagi	宮城県	Sendai	Tōhoku	2,227,240	7,282.29	306
Niigata	新潟県	Niigata	Chūbu	2,068,476	12,583.96	164
Nagano	長野県	Nagano	Chūbu	1,954,950	13,561.56	144
Gifu	岐阜県	Gifu	Chūbu	1,891,489	10,621.29	178
Gunma	群馬県	Maebashi	Kantō	1,867,582	6,362.28	294
Tochigi	栃木県	Utsunomiya	Kantō	1,864,833	6,408.09	291
Okayama	岡山県	Okayama	Chūgoku	1,808,664	7,114.33	254
Fukushima	福島県	Fukushima	Tōhoku	1,711,937	13,784.14	124
Mie	三重県	Tsu	Kansai	1,694,896	5,774.49	294
Kumamoto	熊本県	Kumamoto	Kyūshū	1,678,090	7,409.46	226
Kagoshima	鹿児島県	Kagoshima	Kyūshū	1,512,969	9,187.06	165
Okinawa	沖縄県	Naha	Kyūshū	1,468,220	2,282.59	643
Shiga	滋賀県	Ōtsu	Kansai	1,392,439	4,017.38	347
Nara	奈良県	Nara	Kansai	1,269,180	3,690.94	344
Yamaguchi	山口県	Yamaguchi	Chūgoku	1,264,006	6,112.54	207
Ehime	愛媛県	Matsuyama	Shikoku	1,260,088	5,676.19	222
Nagasaki	長崎県	Nagasaki	Kyūshū	1,232,190	4,130.98	298
Aomori	青森県	Aomori	Tōhoku	1,140,395	9,645.64	118
Iwate	岩手県	Morioka	Tōhoku	1,125,502	15,275.01	74
Ishikawa	石川県	Kanazawa	Chūbu	1,088,221	4,190.94	260
Ōita	大分県	Ōita	Kyūshū	1,076,875	6,340.76	170
Miyazaki	宮崎県	Miyazaki	Kyūshū	1,018,904	7,735.22	132
Yamagata	山形県	Yamagata	Tōhoku	993,127	9,323.15	107
Toyama	富山県	Toyama	Chūbu	985,675	4,247.58	232
Kagawa	香川県	Takamatsu	Shikoku	907,725	1,876.78	484
Akita	秋田県	Akita	Tōhoku	882,100	11,637.52	76
Wakayama	和歌山県	Wakayama	Kansai	864,262	4,724.65	183
Saga	佐賀県	Saga	Kyūshū	781,214	2,440.69	320
Yamanashi	山梨県	Kōfu	Chūbu	779,912	4,465.27	175
Fukui	福井県	Fukui	Chūbu	729,386	4,190.52	174
Tokushima	徳島県	Tokushima	Shikoku	675,489	4,146.75	163
Kōchi	高知県	Kōchi	Shikoku	643,437	7,103.63	91
Shimane	島根県	Matsue	Chūgoku	629,460	6,707.89	94
Tottori	鳥取県	Tottori	Chūgoku	523,732	3,507.14	149

A few reading notes: Tokyo leads by a wide margin and was one of the rare prefectures still gaining residents between 2020 and 2025. Tottori remains the least populous. Hokkaidō is the largest in area and among the sparsest. Okinawa is often grouped with Kyūshū on tourist maps even though its islands form a distinct cultural zone in the Ryūkyūs.

Historical provinces versus the modern grid

Before the Meiji government abolished the feudal domains in 1871 (haihan-chiken), Japan was carved into historical provinces whose borders only partly match today’s prefectures. Names such as Musashi, Yamato, or Satsuma still appear in shrine titles, brand names, and sports team monikers. That is why a single modern prefecture can host more than one “old province” memory—and why English sources sometimes blur the vocabulary.

What did not survive as a governing layer is the old province system itself. Governors, prefectural police, high schools, and major roads sit with the todōfuken. When a label says “province” next to a modern population table, treat it as wording, not as a second legal map.

How to use this list when you travel or study

For itineraries, start from the region, then pick two or three prefectures that share a rail corridor. For language study, learn the capital and the Japanese suffix together—Tokyo-to, Osaka-fu, Hokkaidō, and every other -ken—so station announcements and forms make sense. For data work, always check the census year: Japan’s total population is slowly declining, and rural prefectures feel that change faster than the Kantō corridor.

Keep this page as a reference grid: forty-seven prefectures, eight regions, four suffixes, and a living map that still wears older names with pride.