Cities
Where to live and work in Japan
Tokyo
Tokyo's job market, salaries, rent, foreign community and daily life — and how to decide whether Japan's capital is the right base for you.
Osaka
Osaka's job market, rent levels, atmosphere and how Japan's second city compares with Tokyo for foreign workers and students.
Fukuoka
Fukuoka's job market, startup scene and daily life: rent 45–55% lower than Tokyo, the airport ten minutes from downtown, and a national strategic zone that keeps the startup pipeline full.
Hamamatsu
Hamamatsu sits in Shizuoka, where 132,100 foreign residents make up 3.7% of the population. A one-room rents for ¥35,000–¥50,000, a single person
Chiba
Chiba holds Japan's 6th-largest foreign population — 259,663 people. Narita Airport, the logistics belt and rents 30–40% under Tokyo, 30–50 minutes from the capital.
Kobe
Kobe's job market, rent and international heritage — how the Kansai port city compares with Osaka next door for foreign workers and families.
Kawaguchi
56,524 of Kawaguchi's 610,232 residents are foreign — 9.26%, nearly three times the national rate. What that density actually buys you, and the honest caveats.
Hiroshima
Hiroshima sits in Hiroshima, where 72,628 foreign residents make up 2.7% of the population. A one-room rents for ¥40,000–¥60,000, a single person
Gifu
Gifu sits in Gifu, where 80,766 foreign residents make up 4.2% of the population. A one-room rents for ¥30,000–¥45,000, a single person spends about
Kyoto
Kyoto's real job market — tourism, universities and quiet tech — plus the housing quirks, tourist-economy wages and what living in the old capital actually costs.
Nagoya
Nagoya's job market, wages and rent — why the Toyota-region hub is the practical choice for manufacturing careers and one of Japan's best savings cities.
Sapporo
Sapporo's job market, rents and the reality of Hokkaido winters — who thrives in Japan's northern metropolis and who should think twice.
Saitama
Saitama holds Japan's 5th-largest foreign population — 290,937 people who work in Tokyo and live 25–45 minutes north of it. Rent, commute lines and where the jobs actually are.
Tsukuba
Tsukuba sits in Ibaraki, where 111,808 foreign residents make up 4.0% of the population. A one-room rents for ¥42,000–¥58,000, a single person spends
Utsunomiya
Utsunomiya sits in Tochigi, where 61,878 foreign residents make up 3.3% of the population. A one-room rents for ¥38,000–¥55,000, a single person
Takasaki
Takasaki sits in Gunma, where 89,670 foreign residents make up 4.7% of the population. A one-room rents for ¥38,000–¥55,000, a single person spends
Where to Live in Osaka
Ward by ward, where foreigners actually live in Osaka — the Korean streets and new Vietnamese shops of Ikuno, the truth about ¥40,000 rent in Nishinari, the tourism-job orbit of Namba, the vocational-school belt around Shin-Osaka, and why factory workers live in Higashiosaka.
Yokohama
Yokohama's job market, rent levels and daily life — how Japan's second-largest city works as a base for people employed in the capital region.
Yokkaichi
Yokkaichi sits in Mie, where 73,551 foreign residents make up 4.3% of the population. A one-room rents for ¥40,000–¥56,000, a single person spends
Where to Live in Tokyo
Ward by ward, where foreigners actually live and why — ¥55,000 rooms in Adachi, the ethnic grocery streets of Shin-Okubo, the student town of Takadanobaba, the expat bubble of Minato — and where workers, students and families each belong.