For the first time, more than half of all municipalities in Japan will be designated as “depopulated areas” under the internal affairs ministry’s classification system that started in 1970, sources said.

The central government has been trying to revitalize local communities, but the latest figures show those measures have largely failed so far.

In the fiscal 2022 list of depopulated areas, 885 cities, towns and villages, or 51.5 percent of all 1,718 municipalities nationwide excluding Tokyo's 23 wards, will be registered as wholly or partially underpopulated.

While 820 fell into the category in April 2021, 65 municipalities in 27 prefectures will be added to the newest list.

Their inclusion will be officially announced in the government gazette issued on April 1.

Based on the results of the 2020 national census, the ministry in mid-January sent notifications to the 65 municipalities under the special measures law to support sustainable development of underpopulated regions.

Furano in Hokkaido, Kamo in Niigata Prefecture and Hitoyoshi in Kumamoto Prefecture will be among the 36 wholly depopulated municipalities added to the list.

The 29 cities and towns expected to be placed in the partially depopulated group include Shirakawa in Fukushima Prefecture, Katori in Chiba Prefecture and Awa in Tokushima Prefecture.

No cities, towns or villages will be delisted from the earlier depopulated list.

The internal affairs ministry earmarked 520 billion yen ($4.57 billion), up 20 billion yen year on year, in the initial fiscal 2022 budget to provide assistance for zones with declining populations.

The funds will be provided through the specialized government bond mechanism, under which the state will cover 70 percent of costs to pay off the municipalities’ bonds.

The budget scale is 1.8 times that of fiscal 2012, when 290 billion yen was invested.

The figure is expected to rise further if local populations keep decreasing and only urban areas become more densely populated.

Local governments’ total debt will likely reach 193 trillion yen at the end of fiscal 2021, according to a Finance Ministry estimate, indicating that municipalities’ lower resident numbers have added to the financial struggles.

Successive administrations have put a priority on local revitalization.

The administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2014 set a goal of “mitigating the population influx into Tokyo,” and a new state minister in charge of local revitalization was appointed to “balance the influx into the Tokyo metropolitan area with the number of those leaving the capital by 2020.”

However, newcomers have continuously outnumbered leavers in the capital.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s administration also has a regional revitalization minister and is pushing a digital garden city program to pour energy into rural regions.

The 1970 special measures law for underpopulated municipalities has repeatedly been modified and extended, with the current one taking effect in April 2021.

The law uses population decline ratios, elderly citizens’ percentages, financial indexes and other barometers to determine which areas have significantly lower populations and should be backed by anti-depopulation bonds and other means.

65 MUNICIPALITIES TO BE DESIGNATED AS DEPOPULATED

Wholly underpopulated:

Hokkaido’s Furano, Shin-Shinotsu, Shikabe, Betsukai; Aomori Prefecture’s Inakadate, Tsuruta; Miyagi Prefecture’s Kawasaki, Matsushima, Osato, Wakuya; Yamagata Prefecture’s Kaminoyama; Fukushima Prefecture’s Kunimi, Tenei, Aizu-Bange; Ibaraki Prefecture’s Sakuragawa, Kawachi; Gunma Prefecture’s Takayama; Saitama Prefecture’s Tokigawa, Minano, Nagatoro; Chiba Prefecture’s Kujukuri; Niigata Prefecture’s Kamo; Fukui Prefecture’s Katsuyama; Nagano Prefecture’s Tateshina; Shiga Prefecture’s Kora; Kyoto Prefecture’s Ayabe; Osaka Prefecture’s Toyono, Nose; Hyogo Prefecture’s Ichikawa; Nara Prefecture’s Takatori; Wakayama Prefecture’s Hirogawa, Mihama; Kochi Prefecture’s Sukumo; Fukuoka Prefecture’s Itoda; Nagasaki Prefecture’s Higashi-Sonogi; Kumamoto Prefecture’s Hitoyoshi

Partially underpopulated:

Fukushima Prefecture’s Shirakawa, Sukagawa; Ibaraki Prefecture’s Itako, Kasumigaura; Chiba Prefecture’s Sosa, Katori, Sanmu, Isumi; Niigata Prefecture’s Shibata, Tainai; Toyama Prefecture’s Tonami; Fukui Prefecture’s Awara, Eiheiji, Wakasa; Nagano Prefecture’s Ueda, Shiojiri, Azumino; Gifu Prefecture’s Kaizu; Shiga Prefecture’s Higashi-Omi; Kyoto Prefecture’s Kizugawa; Hyogo Prefecture’s Tanba-Sasayama, Tatsuno; Wakayama Prefecture’s Minabe; Tokushima Prefecture’s Awa; Kumamoto Prefecture’s Tamana, Kikuchi, Hikawa; Kagoshima Prefecture’s Izumi; Okinawa Prefecture’s Nanjo