From the latest Metropolis' "The Small Print" (the only part I read). Wikpedia claims that Saitama & Chiba have 7 and 6 million residents respectively. To put the "clump" of people in perspective, Kanagawa is right next to Tokyo, as is Chiba & Saitama in different directions... some parts of those prefectures are closer to "cool" parts of Tokyo (Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ikebukuro, Ueno, Akihabara, etc.) than other parts of Tokyo (deep Setagaya, Hachioji, etc.). By my count that's about 30 million people in the area... albeit, it's a big area, it never really stops. The only thing telling you you're in another city is the signs. Don't forget that the area also has 3 separate fault lines. :flamethrower:
Thats 35 million people in Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama. Or about 27.5% of the Japanese population. Although the greater tokyo area can include parts of three other prefectures. In context, London (the most populated city in Europe) and the home counties of Essex, Hertfordshire, Berkshire, Surrey and Kent have about the same sqaure area as Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba but only have a grand total of about 13.8 million people or about 22% of the British population (it's increases to 26.5% if you just use England...). It's likely that the number of Gaijin leaving will probably increase over the next few years, which is probably a good thing.
It would've been nice to have gotten a breakdown by country of citizenship, or at least east versus west (or banker versus teacher versus people that came to Japan for a better life).
