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The Atarashift Blog
Guides, interviews, and honest advice for international talent building a career in Japan.
In 2025 Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto took 58% of Japan's foreign guest-nights, and Taiwan led 20 of 47 prefectures. A full breakdown by prefecture and nationality.
In 2025, foreign visitors recorded roughly 154 million guest-nights at Japanese hotels and inns (counting facilities with 10 or more staff). Three prefectures took most of them: Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto captured 58% of all foreign guest-nights, and Tokyo alone accounted for a third. The pattern underneath is the interesting part. Taiwan is the single largest source market in 20 of Japan's 47 prefectures, China dominates the biggest cities, and South Korea leads across the west. Here is the full picture, by prefecture and by nationality, straight from Japan's official accommodation statistics.
Very. Foreign guest-nights in Japan cluster into a short list of destinations, then fall away sharply.
Add Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto together and you reach 58.3% of all foreign guest-nights in the country. Extend the list to the top five and you are at 70.6%. The top ten prefectures hold 84.4%, and the top twelve hold 86.8%. That leaves the remaining 35 prefectures sharing just over a tenth of the total between them.
The spread between the busiest and the quietest is the clearest way to see it. Tokyo recorded 51.1 million foreign guest-nights. Shimane, at the bottom of the table, recorded about 90,000. That is a 567-fold difference within a single country. For anyone picturing "tourists in Japan" as an evenly spread crowd, the reality is a handful of very busy prefectures and a long tail of quiet ones.
These twelve prefectures account for 86.8% of all foreign guest-nights in Japan. The three largest source markets are listed for each, in order.
| Rank | Prefecture | Foreign guest-nights | Top 3 source markets |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tokyo | 51.1M | China, United States, Taiwan |
| 2 | Osaka | 23.2M | China, South Korea, Taiwan |
| 3 | Kyoto | 15.6M | China, United States, Taiwan |
| 4 | Hokkaido | 11.2M | Taiwan, South Korea, China |
| 5 | Fukuoka | 7.8M | South Korea, Taiwan, China |
| 6 | Okinawa | 6.2M | Taiwan, South Korea, China |
| 7 | Aichi | 4.5M | China, Taiwan, South Korea |
| 8 | Chiba | 4.3M | China, United States, Taiwan |
| 9 | Kanagawa | 4.2M | China, United States, Taiwan |
| 10 | Shizuoka | 1.9M | China, Taiwan, South Korea |
| 11 | Hiroshima | 1.9M | United States, Australia, United Kingdom |
| 12 | Hyogo | 1.9M | China, Taiwan, South Korea |
Notice how the source markets shift as you move down the list. The metros at the top lean toward China and, in the Tokyo cluster, the United States. Hokkaido, Fukuoka, and Okinawa, all closer to the rest of Asia and popular for regional travel, lean toward Taiwan and South Korea. Even inside a top-heavy ranking, the geography of who visits is already visible.
This is where the averages stop being useful and the map gets specific. The same accommodation survey breaks each prefecture's foreign guest-nights down by nationality, and the regional preferences are strong enough to redraw Japan into rough spheres of influence.
Counting only the single largest source market in each prefecture:
Taiwan's reach is even wider than that top-line suggests. It appears in the top three source markets of 46 of the 47 prefectures, missing only one. China appears in 42, South Korea in 24, and the United States in 12. Hong Kong shows up in 11.
Taiwan is the most geographically widespread inbound market in Japan, and its strongholds are not the famous cities. Its highest local shares are in the rural north and along the quieter coasts:
In several of these prefectures, more than two of every five foreign guests came from Taiwan alone. If you travel outside the main tourist corridors and meet international visitors, statistically they are most likely to be Taiwanese.
China's guest-nights concentrate where the volume is. It is the top source market in Tokyo (18.0% of the city's foreign guest-nights), Osaka (27.9%), Kyoto (20.1%), Aichi (28.1%), Chiba, and Kanagawa, along with a band of central prefectures. Its highest single share is in Shizuoka at 39.7%, followed by Wakayama (35.2%) and Hyogo (33.6%). China's map is the map of Japan's largest metros and the areas around them.
South Korea's presence rises the further west and south you go, helped by short flight and ferry routes. Its strongest shares are in Kyushu and the western reaches of Honshu and Shikoku:
In the Kyushu prefectures nearest to the Korean peninsula, Korean visitors are the dominant foreign market by a wide margin.
Across all 47 prefectures, exactly one is led by a Western country. Hiroshima's largest foreign source market is the United States (12.7%), followed by Australia (7.8%) and the United Kingdom (7.3%). It is the only prefecture where the top three source markets are all Western, a reflection of Hiroshima's particular place on the international itinerary.
Beyond Taiwan, China, and South Korea, one market still shows up regularly. Hong Kong reaches the top three in 11 prefectures, most often in the northeast alongside Taiwan, though it rarely challenges for the top spot.
Zoom out, and the top-three lists turn out to be a small club. Of the twenty named source markets the survey tracks, only eight ever reach any prefecture's top three. The United Kingdom does it exactly once, placing third in Hiroshima. Australia appears just twice, in Hiroshima and Nagano, and Thailand three times. The other twelve tracked markets, among them Canada, Germany, France, Singapore, India, and Vietnam, never break into a single prefecture's top three anywhere in Japan. It is a measure of how completely the nearby East Asian markets, led by Taiwan and China, shape where foreign visitors concentrate.
Foreign guest-nights by prefecture in 2025, each with its three largest source markets. Volumes are shown in millions (M) or thousands (k).
| Rank | Prefecture | Foreign guest-nights | Top 3 source markets |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tokyo | 51.1M | China, United States, Taiwan |
| 2 | Osaka | 23.2M | China, South Korea, Taiwan |
| 3 | Kyoto | 15.6M | China, United States, Taiwan |
| 4 | Hokkaido | 11.2M | Taiwan, South Korea, China |
| 5 | Fukuoka | 7.8M | South Korea, Taiwan, China |
| 6 | Okinawa | 6.2M | Taiwan, South Korea, China |
| 7 | Aichi | 4.5M | China, Taiwan, South Korea |
| 8 | Chiba | 4.3M | China, United States, Taiwan |
| 9 | Kanagawa | 4.2M | China, United States, Taiwan |
| 10 | Shizuoka | 1.9M | China, Taiwan, South Korea |
| 11 | Hiroshima | 1.9M | United States, Australia, United Kingdom |
| 12 | Hyogo | 1.9M | China, Taiwan, South Korea |
| 13 | Nagano | 1.8M | Taiwan, China, Australia |
| 14 | Ishikawa | 1.8M | Taiwan, China, United States |
| 15 | Yamanashi | 1.7M | China, Taiwan, Thailand |
| 16 | Gifu | 1.6M | China, Taiwan, Thailand |
| 17 | Kumamoto | 1.6M | South Korea, Taiwan, China |
| 18 | Oita | 1.1M | South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong |
| 19 | Miyagi | 971k | Taiwan, China, Hong Kong |
| 20 | Kagawa | 924k | Taiwan, China, South Korea |
| 21 | Okayama | 626k | Taiwan, China, South Korea |
| 22 | Wakayama | 583k | China, Taiwan, Hong Kong |
| 23 | Kagoshima | 563k | South Korea, China, Taiwan |
| 24 | Nagasaki | 530k | South Korea, Taiwan, United States |
| 25 | Niigata | 519k | Taiwan, China, Hong Kong |
| 26 | Aomori | 508k | Taiwan, China, South Korea |
| 27 | Ehime | 475k | South Korea, Taiwan, China |
| 28 | Nara | 443k | China, United States, Taiwan |
| 29 | Iwate | 430k | Taiwan, China, Hong Kong |
| 30 | Tochigi | 384k | Taiwan, China, United States |
| 31 | Toyama | 361k | Taiwan, China, Hong Kong |
| 32 | Fukushima | 325k | Taiwan, China, Thailand |
| 33 | Mie | 317k | China, Taiwan, South Korea |
| 34 | Gunma | 304k | Taiwan, China, Hong Kong |
| 35 | Yamagata | 285k | Taiwan, China, Hong Kong |
| 36 | Shiga | 274k | Taiwan, China, South Korea |
| 37 | Ibaraki | 271k | China, Taiwan, South Korea |
| 38 | Saitama | 258k | China, United States, Taiwan |
| 39 | Saga | 240k | South Korea, Taiwan, China |
| 40 | Tokushima | 201k | South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong |
| 41 | Miyazaki | 189k | South Korea, Taiwan, China |
| 42 | Yamaguchi | 156k | South Korea, United States, Taiwan |
| 43 | Tottori | 150k | China, South Korea, Taiwan |
| 44 | Akita | 126k | Taiwan, China, United States |
| 45 | Kochi | 116k | Taiwan, China, Hong Kong |
| 46 | Fukui | 98k | Taiwan, China, Hong Kong |
| 47 | Shimane | 90k | Taiwan, China, South Korea |
If your interest in Japan is professional rather than touristic, this data is still worth reading, because tourism volume is one visible signal of where international life concentrates. Prefectures with heavy foreign guest-night traffic tend to have more English-facing services, larger international communities, and more employers used to working across languages. The gap between Tokyo and Shimane is not only a tourism gap; it tracks, loosely, the gap in how internationally connected each region's economy is.
The nationality split adds a second layer. A region where a specific market dominates often has service industries, signage, and hiring oriented toward that market. That shapes which language skills are locally valued and which employers are actively recruiting internationally. None of this replaces looking at real job listings, but it is useful context for deciding where in Japan to base a search. If Tokyo is on your shortlist, our breakdowns of the cost of living in Tokyo and the best neighborhoods for expats cover what living there is actually like. Platforms that specialise in foreign talent, such as Atarashift, filter roles by language requirement and visa sponsorship precisely because that regional variation is real.
These figures come from the Japan Tourism Agency's Accommodation Survey (宿泊旅行統計調査), using the 2025 annual final values (確定値). A few points are worth understanding before quoting the numbers:
Used with those caveats in mind, the survey is the most authoritative source available for where foreign visitors actually spend the night in Japan and where they come from.
Which prefecture gets the most foreign visitors in Japan?
Tokyo, by a wide margin. It recorded about 51.1 million foreign guest-nights in 2025, roughly a third of the national total, more than Osaka and Kyoto combined.
Which nationality visits Japan the most?
It depends on how you measure it. China records the largest share in Japan's biggest destinations, including Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto, so it dominates by raw volume. Taiwan is the most geographically widespread market, ranking as the number one source in 20 prefectures and appearing in the top three of 46 of the 47.
Do foreign tourists only go to Tokyo and Kyoto?
No, but tourism is heavily concentrated. The top three prefectures account for 58% of foreign guest-nights and the top twelve for 87%, so while every prefecture receives some foreign visitors, the great majority of nights are spent in a small number of them.
What is a guest-night, and does it count day trips?
A guest-night (person-night) is one guest staying one night at an accommodation. A traveller who stays three nights generates three guest-nights. Day trips and visits that do not involve an overnight stay are not counted.
Why does Taiwan dominate rural Japan?
The data shows the pattern clearly but does not explain the cause. Contributing factors commonly cited include strong direct regional flight links, high repeat-visit rates among Taiwanese travellers, and interest in areas beyond the main tourist corridors. What the numbers establish is the outcome: Taiwan is the top foreign market across much of northern and rural Japan.
Where can I see the full prefecture-by-prefecture breakdown?
The complete dataset is published by the Japan Tourism Agency in its Accommodation Survey, which reports foreign guest-nights for all 47 prefectures broken down by 21 nationalities and regions.
Source: Japan Tourism Agency, Accommodation Survey (宿泊旅行統計調査), 2025 annual final values (確定値), Reference Table 1 (参考第1表), facilities with 10 or more employees. Figures retrieved July 2026.
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