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The population of Japan at the time of the Meiji Restoration was estimated to be 34,985,000 on January 1, 1873, while the official original family registries (本籍, honseki) and de facto (or present registries (現住, genjū)) populations on the same day were 33,300,644 and 33,416,939, respectively. These were comparable to the population of the United Kingdom (31,000,000), France (38,000,000) and Austria-Hungary (38,000,000).
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Total Population
Meiji government established the uniformed registered system of koseki (戸籍, family registries) in 1872, which is called Jinshin koseki (壬申戸籍).
The first national census based on full sampling of inhabitants was conducted in Japan in 1920, and was conducted every five years thereafter. Per the Statistics Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the population distribution of Japan proper from 1920 to 1945 is as follows
The above figures include Hokkaidō, the northernmost island, sparsely populated, with area similar to the state of Maine; the central island of Honshū, larger than Ohio and Indiana, site of the most important cities and industrial centers; and smaller islands of Kyūshū and Shikoku, and Okinawa (except for the 1945 census values).
Urban Population
In Japan proper, the population of major cities was as follows:
In 1937 Japanese demographers projected the Japanese population in 1980 to reach 100,000,000, in accordance with observed growth rates.
Japanese overseas possessions
Japan annexed Taiwan after the First Sino-Japanese War, while victory in the Russo-Japanese War gained Japan the Kwantung Leased Territory, Karafuto, and Korea. These acquisitions increased the area controlled by Japanese to 262,912 square miles (680,939 km2).
The total population of the Empire of Japan, including Taiwan, Korea and Karafuto was 64,940,034 in Dec 31, 1908, which could be broken down as follows:
And the population of concessions as of Dec 31, 1908 was as follows:
The census population in 1940 was:
Total: 105,226,202 (of whom 73,499,952 were Japanese, 24,820,517 were Koreans, 5,533,576 were Taiwanese, 50,899 were South Pacific natives, 1,382 were Karafuto natives, 1,158,083 were of Manchurian nationality in Kwangtung, and 161,792 of other nationalities)
Urban population in overseas territories
In terms of cities, the population of major cities:
Manchukuo
The population of Manchuria in early 1934 was estimated at 30,880,000. These numbers included 30,190,000 Chinese, 590,760 Japanese, and 98,431 other nationalities (Russians, Mongols, etc.). The Chinese numbers included 680,000 ethnic Koreans. In 1937, shortly after the foundation of Manchukuo, the government launched a twenty-year colonization program, with the goal of increasing the population through the immigration of 1,000,000 Japanese families (5 million people) between 1936 and 1956. This was in addition to the Japanese military garrison of approximately 300,000 men in 1937. Between 1938 and 1942 a contingent of young farmers of 200,000 arrived in Manchukuo; joining this group after 1936 were 20,000 complete families. In Shinkyō Japanese made up 25% of the population. By 1940, the total population of Manchukuo was estimated at 36,933,000, which included approximately 1 million Japanese civilian and 500,000 Japanese military personnel. These figures exclude that of the Kwantung Leased Territory and Dalien, which were included within that of the Japanese overseas territories.