10% of nation lives in Tokyo

Tokyo as of last Oct. 1 had 12.76 million residents, increasing 0.78 percent from a year earlier and — for the first time since 1979 — accounting for 10 percent of Japan's total population.

The increased concentration in Tokyo stemmed in part from an influx of around 91,000 people who moved in for employment and other reasons in 2007, according to a prefecture-specific census estimate by the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry released Tuesday.

Such a rate of increase was last seen during the bubble economy of the late 1980s.

"Businesses converged in Tokyo after land prices became lower than the bubble period and the economy rebounded," a ministry official said.

The population of Tokyo — the largest among the nation's 47 prefectures — peaked at 11.1 percent of the total population in the late 1960s and dropped below 10 percent starting in 1980.

The ministry's latest data also underscores population shifts to urban centers. Tokyo and nine other prefectures with large urban areas marked population increases, while the remaining 37 prefectures registered declines, with Akita marking the sharpest fall of 1.16 percent.

The data underlines the graying of the population and declining births.

Tokyo was the only prefecture that saw an increase in people aged 14 or younger, while all 47 prefectures posted rises in the population aged 65 or older.

In six prefectures, people aged 75 or older outnumbered those aged 14 or younger.

The national population was estimated at 127.77 million, almost unchanged from a year ago. But the population data marked for the first time a natural decrease since they began to be compiled in 1950. Deaths outstripped births by 2,000.