Short answers, pulled from the story.
Japan's population is nearly 123 million as of 2026. Of those, almost 119 million are Japanese nationals, with foreign residents numbering an estimated 3,743,000 as of September 2025. Japan is the world's 11th most populous country.
Japan's Lost Decades refers to a prolonged period of economic stagnation and low inflation that began in the mid-1990s following the collapse of an asset price bubble. The term describes the economic underperformance that followed Japan's earlier rise to become the world's second-largest economy.
Japan opened to the West in March 1854 through the Convention of Kanagawa, following Commodore Matthew C. Perry's arrival at Uraga with four warships in July 1853. Perry's expedition ended the Tokugawa shogunate's sakoku isolationist policy, which had been in effect since 1639.
Japan has a total fertility rate of 1.2, well below the replacement level of 2.1, and among the world's lowest. Japan's population is projected to fall from approximately 123 million to around 88 million by 2065 as a result.
Japan has the world's fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP, behind the United States, China, and Germany. Its leading industries include automotive manufacturing, electronics, and robotics; Toyota is the world's largest automobile company by production, and Japan supplied 38% of the world's robots in 2024.
Article 9 of Japan's 1947 constitution renounces the right to declare war or use military force in international disputes. Despite this, Japan maintains the tenth-largest military budget in the world as of 2024, spending 1.4% of GDP, and the Japan Self-Defense Forces have been authorized since 2015 to act in existential crisis situations.