Do you know Japan’s Kyushu & Okinawa region?
Kyushu & Okinawa is a region located in the southwestern part of Japan.
Kyushu is one of the four main islands that make up Japan. Okinawa Prefecture consists of a chain of many islands further southwest of Kyushu.
This article introduces Kyushu & Okinawa as consisting of 8 prefectures: Fukuoka, Saga, Nagasaki, Kumamoto, Oita, Miyazaki, Kagoshima, and Okinawa.
Alongside a major city like Fukuoka, the region has areas with volcanoes, wide farmland, coastal towns, and many islands. Because it stretches a long way from north to south, the climate and scenery differ between Kyushu and Okinawa.
A school building overlooking a volcano.
An island school surrounded by blue sea.
A path to school running past rice paddies and sugarcane fields.
A schoolyard with sea breezes blowing through.
In Kyushu & Okinawa, you can see different school scenes depending on the place.
Today, the number of schools in Kyushu & Okinawa is decreasing.
This time, using data from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s “School Basic Survey,” we made a map that lets you compare the number of elementary, junior high, and high schools in Kyushu & Okinawa at 3 points in time: 1965, 1990, and 2024.
Why don’t you take a look, together with me, at how the number of schools in Kyushu & Okinawa has changed, using the map?
Kyushu & Okinawa’s School Count Change Map
This article treats Fukuoka, Saga, Nagasaki, Kumamoto, Oita, Miyazaki, Kagoshima, and Okinawa prefectures as making up Kyushu & Okinawa.
Use the buttons at the top of the map to switch between elementary, junior high, and high schools, and between 1965, 1990, and 2024.
The size of each circle on the map represents the number of schools. The color shows how the number of schools has changed compared to 1965.
Select the circle for a prefecture you’re curious about to see the total number of schools, the number of main and branch schools, and the breakdown by national, public, and private.
If you’d like to see all of Japan, select “All Japan.”
For 1965, Okinawa Prefecture is marked with an “outside survey scope” symbol instead of a circle representing a number of schools. This does not mean 0 schools.
About the map data
This map was compiled and mapped by Visible World by Data, based on data from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s “School Basic Survey.”
School counts include both main schools and branch schools.
For high schools, this map shows full-time and part-time schools. Schools that are correspondence-only are not included.
Okinawa Prefecture was not included in the 1965 survey. 1965 covers 46 prefectures, excluding Okinawa; 1990 and 2024 cover all 47 prefectures.
For that reason, the 1965 figure for Kyushu & Okinawa is the total for Kyushu’s 7 prefectures, while the 1990 and 2024 figures are totals for the 8 prefectures including Okinawa. Care is needed when comparing the 3 points in time directly.
Comparing school counts in Japan and Kyushu & Okinawa
The data card lets you compare the number of schools in Japan as a whole and in Kyushu & Okinawa at 3 points in time: 1965, 1990, and 2024.
Use the buttons at the top to switch between elementary, junior high, and high schools.
Elementary schools in Kyushu & Okinawa numbered 3,524 in 1965, 3,611 in 1990, and 2,746 in 2024.
Junior high schools numbered 1,671 in 1965, 1,688 in 1990, and 1,415 in 2024.
High schools numbered 620 in 1965, 708 in 1990, and 618 in 2024.
However, the 1965 figures do not include Okinawa Prefecture. The 1990 and 2024 figures are totals for the 8 prefectures including Okinawa.
After checking the numbers for Kyushu & Okinawa, take a look at the change across Japan as a whole, and the differences among the 8 prefectures, on the map as well.
What I noticed while making this map
In Kyushu & Okinawa, elementary, junior high, and high schools all decreased between 1990 and 2024.
Compared with elementary schools, the decrease in junior high and high schools was smaller.
What stood out to me was that, in 2024, Kyushu & Okinawa’s school numbers — for elementary, junior high, and high schools alike — rank next only to Kanto and Kinki in scale.
You may be curious about how the number of schools has changed in your own country, too.
Why not use the map to compare those trends with changes in Kyushu & Okinawa?
Let’s look at school counts across Japan
In the regional articles, you can look more closely at the change in school numbers using an enlarged map and data card for each region.
Source: Compiled from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s “School Basic Survey” (e-Stat)
※ School counts include both main schools and branch schools.
※ The high school counts include full-time and part-time schools.
※ Kyushu & Okinawa is the total of Fukuoka, Saga, Nagasaki, Kumamoto, Oita, Miyazaki, Kagoshima, and Okinawa prefectures.
※ Because Okinawa Prefecture was not included in the 1965 survey, care is needed when making a simple comparison with 1990 and later.