What percent of the Japanese population lived in urban centers during and following WWII?

by capitanchuro
y_sengaku

I hope this graph, roughly based on the national census and taken from [Watanabe 2019: 52] (while the population in big city areas is represented by a solid line, those who lived in rural areas is shown by the dashed line might satisfy OP's curiosity.

Watanabe summarizes the big demographic trend between big cities and non big cities mainly from 1930s to 1970s as following (Watanabe 2019: 51f.):

  • Roughly speaking, about one-third of the population lived in the big city areas, such as Shutoken (Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba, and Kanagawa Pref.) and Aichi, Kyoto, Osaka Pref. in 1940, just before WWII and the most relevant census was actually conducted (though some information....to give an example, the exact location of military employee, were not disclosed).
  • This 1: 2 (big cities: out of big cities area) ratio temporary weighed to the latter (27.01%: 72.99%) in the end of WWII due to the evacuation.
  • In long-term trend, however, the concentration to big city areas have kept going up to about ca. 1970.

Reference:

  • WATANABE, Tutomu. 'Regional Mobility and Inequality among Occupations in Japan from 1930 to 1970'. Kwansei Gakuin Sociology Department studies 130 (2019): 51-74. http://hdl.handle.net/10236/00027697 (in Japanese)