Japan' population declined in 2015 by about 1 million, or 0.7 percent, according to the latest census survey, which was released by the ministry of internal affairs on Friday.
The Asian country, which had 128.1 million people in 2010, recorded a population of 127.1 million in 2015, a decline of 947,000 people in the last five years, the Associated Press reported.
The data revealed that the country's 39 prefectures out of 47 recorded a drop in their population, which means that only eight prefectures, including Tokyo, witnessed a population growth in the last five years.
The Tokyo population stood at 13.5 million, which was 2.7 percent more than city's population in 2010, The Asahi Shimbun reported. The figures also highlight continuing trends of migration to urban areas, as the top nine prefectures, including Tokyo, Osaka, Aichi and Fukuoka, account for the country's more than half population,
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that the government will take steps to increase the birthrate in order to restrict the population decline. "It is crucial to establish a social structure to accommodate the decline," Suga told Kyodo.
The number of households increased by 2.8 percent as compare to the previous census, standing at 53,403,226. The Japanese government conducts censuses every five years. The country is currently the 10th most populated in the world.
