Where visitors to Japan spend their nights
Foreign guest nights by prefecture from 2021 to 2025, from Japan Tourism Agency statistics. Pick a year to see how the order has changed.
Prefectures on the rise
The biggest growth in foreign guest nights from 2023 to 2025, among prefectures with at least 300,000 nights in 2025. Many are outside the Tokyo to Kyoto route.
The top five, year by year
Tokyo pulled far ahead once borders reopened in 2022. Hover over a point for the exact number of nights.
Place guides
Main towns and famous places in the 13 guide prefectures, on a map with distances. Choose a town to base yourself in, or start from a place you already know.
About the data
- Source
- Japan Tourism Agency (観光庁), Accommodation Survey (宿泊旅行統計調査). The figure is total nights stayed by foreign guests, counted by the prefecture where the accommodation is located.
- Nights, not visitors
- A guest who stays three nights counts as three. A prefecture that people pass through quickly can rank lower than one where they stay longer.
- Precision
- Figures for 2021 to 2023 are exact. Figures for 2024 and 2025 are rounded to the nearest 10,000 nights. All are confirmed annual values from a sample survey and may be revised. The 2024 and 2025 figures for Ishikawa may include people displaced by the 2024 Noto earthquake.
- Rising
- Growth in nights from 2023 to 2025. Prefectures under 300,000 nights in 2025 are left out because small numbers swing widely.
- Place guides
- The guides mark four kinds of place. World Heritage entries follow the list kept by Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Towers and tall buildings are public observation decks. Famous places and off-the-beaten-path spots are editorial picks, because the Japan Tourism Agency publishes no current, ready-to-use list of sightseeing spots and no nationwide figures by municipality. The trip planner's master list is a separate, provisional candidate list that is still being checked. Check opening hours, access and prices before you go.
Data checked in November 2026. The CSV files behind this site are in the data folder.