Number of foreign residents in Japan from the Ministry of Justice's statistics on foreign residents in Japan. According to the Ministry of Justice's statistics, there are 2,217,000 foreign residents living in Japan as of 2008.

In view of the trend from 1991 onwards, the number of foreign residents has nearly doubled in 17 years. There has been great increase in the number of Chinese and Brazilian residents, believed to be attributable to the demand for labor in factories.

The greatest number of foreign residents in Japan per 100,000 population is 3,229 in Tokyo, which means that there are 3 foreign residents in approximately every 100 persons. Aichi (3,179), Mie (2,859), Gifu (2,747) and Shizuoka (2,736). In the second to fifth prefectures where there are many automobile related factories, there are many Brazilian and Chinese residents.

In addition to the three major metropolitan areas Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya, there are many foreign residents in areas where there are many manufacturing industry workers. The correlative ranking shows that it is highly correlated with the prefectural income per capita, and it can be said that there are many foreigners where wages are high, such as in urban areas and areas where there are factories.