Research & reports

国土交通省都市局 · 国土交通省 都市局 都市計画課・公園緑地・景観課 · Japan

MLIT's Urban Bureau guide (April 2026 edition) explains the Productive Green Zone and Special Productive Green Zone systems and the municipal designation procedure. Productive Green Zones require at least 500 m² of urbanization-area farmland (reducible to 300 m² by local ordinance); as of 31 December 2025, 52,955 zones covering 10,613 ha were designated nationwide. Special Productive Green Zone designation must occur before the 30-year mark from the original zoning notice; once designated, the earliest date an owner can request a buyout is deferred by 10 years, renewable repeatedly with owner consent. In the three major metropolitan areas, parcels not redesignated shift to residential-land property taxation via a phased relief schedule (0.2/0.4/0.6/0.8 of the tax base increase in years one through four).

東京都都市整備局 · 東京都都市整備局 · Japan

This official page from the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Urban Development (last updated May 26, 2026) explains Tokyo's productive green zone (seisan ryokuchi) system: designation requires a plot of at least 500 sqm (reducible to 300 sqm by municipal ordinance, with contiguous plots eligible if each is at least 100 sqm), imposes a 30-year farming obligation, and grants tax benefits (agricultural-rate property tax and inheritance tax deferral). It also explains that because zones designated in 1992 under the revised law reached the 30-year mark in 2022, the "specified productive green zone" system (created by a 2017 law amendment) allows landowners to extend the tax benefits and buyback-request window by another 10 years.

国土交通省 · 国土交通省 · Japan

This Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) page is an index of PowerPoint-format reference materials on Japan's city planning system, organized by topic — planning law and structure, land-use planning (including the urbanization-promotion/control-area division and district plans), urban facility planning, urban greening (including farmland conservation), development permits, and location optimization. Details of specific systems, including the urbanization area/control area division, reside in the linked documents rather than on the page itself.

国土交通省 · 国土交通省 · Japan

This MLIT page indexes data resources on urban farmland in Japan — current farmland area (including area within urbanization-promotion zones and productive green space), the list of designated cities in the three major metropolitan areas subject to special urban farmland rules, the status of productive-green-space designations, area trends over time, and designation status of 'specified' productive green space, most updated as of end-December Reiwa 7 (2025). The specific figures themselves reside in the linked source documents, not on this index page.

農林水産省 · 農林水産省 農村振興局農村政策部農村計画課都市農業室 · Japan

Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) organizes urban agriculture's roles into six functions: fresh produce supply, farming-experience/exchange opportunities, disaster-prevention open space, green/landscape space, national land and environmental conservation, and food/agricultural education. In a survey of urban residents, about 50% recognized urban farms' role in supplying fresh produce and about 60% expressed interest in buying local produce, while only about 30% saw urban farms as a place for farming experience or exchange. 'Disaster cooperation farmland' — an arrangement re-recognized after the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake — involves municipalities signing voluntary agreements with farmers to use urban farmland as evacuation space or temporary-housing sites during disasters.

三鷹市 · 三鷹市 · Japan

Mitaka City's greening subsidy covers up to half the actual cost of rooftop greening work, capped at 20,000 yen per square meter (with a combined cap of 1 million yen for rooftop and wall greening together). Wall greening is subsidized up to 10,000 yen per square meter, and street-facing greening up to 14,000 yen per meter. Applicants must obtain approval before starting work, and sites that received the subsidy within the past five years are ineligible.

農林水産省 · 農林水産省 · Japan

This MAFF page explains that community gardens (shimin nouen) in Japan can be established by municipalities, agricultural cooperatives, landowning farmers, or non-landowning entities such as companies and NPOs, under three legal frameworks: the Community Garden Development Promotion Act, the Specified Farmland Lease Act, and the Urban Farmland Lease Act. It is primarily procedural guidance for prospective operators, with a FY2026 explanatory pamphlet available.

· Wikipedia (ja) · Japan

Japanese department store rooftop amusement parks trace back to Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi's 'aerial garden' in 1907, with Japan's first permanent rooftop amusement park, 'Sportsland,' opening at Matsuya Asakusa in November 1931. They peaked from the mid-1950s through the late 1960s, but declined after department store fires in 1972 and 1973 led to a revised Fire Service Act requiring half of rooftops to be kept as evacuation areas; as of 2023, only five stores—Matsuzakaya Takatsuki, Matsuzakaya Nagoya, Daiwa Korinbo, Iyotetsu Takashimaya, and Hamaya Department Store—still operate one.

国土交通省 · 国土交通省 都市局公園緑地・景観課 · Japan

This MLIT Urban Bureau page introduces rooftop and wall greening promotion measures implemented annually since fiscal 2000. As of the end of March 2008, rooftop greening in Tokyo's Kasumigaseki government district reached about 14,500 sqm (roughly 55 tennis courts), equivalent to about 1.5% of all rooftop-type greened area in Tokyo. It notes a rooftop garden was open to the public until August 19, 2021, after which it was scheduled for removal due to waterproofing layer repair work.

· Wikipedia（日本語版） · Japan

The Japanese Wikipedia article on rooftop greening traces its origins to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon around 600 BCE, and in Japan cites the 1934-built Asakura Museum of Sculpture as a surviving early example, with Nihonbashi Takashimaya among the pioneers from the late 1960s onward. It lists effects including heat island mitigation, improved insulation, sound reduction, increased water retention, air purification, and improved landscape, dividing methods into lightweight thin-layer greening using sedum or lawn versus full garden-style greening with flower beds and shrubs.

· Wikipedia · Japan

This Wikipedia article on night soil describes how, in the city of Edo, compost merchants gathered feces to sell to farmers, and that human excreta of rich people were sold at higher prices because their better diet presumably left more nutrients in it. Various historic documents detailing toilet-waste disposal procedures date from as early as the 9th century. The article states that after World War II the practice declined rapidly due to sanitation concerns and the spread of chemical fertilizer, and that today less than 1% of human waste is used for night soil fertilization.

農林水産省 · 農林水産省 · Japan

This Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) page explains Japan's key laws on citizen farms. The Act on Special Measures Concerning the Lending of Specified Farmland, enacted in 1989, created Farmland Act exceptions for short-term lending of small subdivided plots, and a 2005 amendment allowed entities other than local governments and agricultural cooperatives to open citizen farms. The Act on Promotion of Citizen Farm Development, enacted in 1990, promotes farms equipped with facilities such as tool sheds and rest areas, while the 2018 Act on Facilitation of Lending of Urban Farmland makes it easier to lease urban farmland (productive green land) for citizen farms.

東京都産業労働局 · 東京都産業労働局 · Japan

The official page of the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Division of the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Industrial and Labor Affairs. The division describes its role as promoting production and infrastructure development in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries to raise profitability, while also providing spaces for education and recreation and contributing to countermeasures against global warming; the page links to related policies, press releases, and statistics for agriculture, fisheries, and forestry.

株式会社アグリメディア · 株式会社アグリメディア · Japan

The official site of 'Sharebatake', a members-only rental farm plot service operated by AGRIMEDIA Co., Ltd. Seeds, seedlings, fertilizer, and tools are provided on-site with experienced advisors on hand, letting members show up 'empty-handed'. It operates nationwide across regions including Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba, Saitama, Aichi, Osaka, Hyogo, Kyoto, and Fukuoka, with about 118 farm sites and roughly 15,138 plots as of end of July 2026.

Nakata Taichi, Naoyuki Nakahama, Nobuko Ohmido, Atushi Ushimaru · Journal of Ecology · Japan (Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe)

This study investigated the effects of urban habitat diversity on plant trait diversification in the Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe megacity, Japan, using a common garden experiment with seeds from 23 Commelina communis populations from rural agricultural lands, urban agricultural lands, parks, and roadsides. Urban habitats generally exhibited higher soil pH and land surface temperature. Urban populations, particularly those from roadsides, showed distinct traits such as increased plant height, larger plant height/width ratio, fewer shoots and leaves, and/or larger leaves compared to rural populations. QST-FST comparisons and trait-environment relationships strongly suggest that local adaptation to hot, shaded, and/or eutrophic urban environments drove the observed trait divergence among various urban populations.

李　錦東 · Institutional Repositories DataBase (IRDB) · Japan (Kitakyushu)

Kitakyushu City has faced challenges due to continuous population decline and aging since the 1980s, while some shrinking cities abroad have used urban agriculture to solve local issues. This study conducted a questionnaire survey targeting Kitakyushu citizens to clarify the current status and needs regarding their urban agricultural activities. The research aims to provide considerations for promoting urban agricultural activities in Kitakyushu.

YUKUN, HE, HE, YUZHONG, Kiyoyama, Yohei, Ishida, Shigeyuki, Hama-cha Co-Creation Team · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Japan (Kyoto)

This paper documents a 2024–2025 field practice concerning Hama-cha, a traditional tencha in Kyoto, which faces threats from labor aging and persistent operational difficulties. Researchers encountered challenges in accessing tacit knowledge and identifying clear solutions for labor shortages, despite both farmers and researchers recognizing the problem. The study highlights the ongoing operational difficulties and lack of clear solutions for the economic viability of this traditional urban agriculture practice.

Takashi Shimofuji, Motoi Kusadokoro, Atsushi Chitose · Journal of Rural Problems · Japan

A case study of Welsh onion cultivation in Chiba Prefecture, Japan, used interview surveys of farm management and marketing channels in urban and remote areas to clarify how a farmer's choice of shipping destination in urban agriculture relates to cultivation size and post-harvest working hours. Urban farmers chose different marketing channels depending on cultivation size, and this flexibility produced differences in post-harvest work systems and in work efficiency measured as shipping quantity per work hour, whereas in remote areas cooperative shipping dominated, leaving fewer shipping options and smaller efficiency disparities among farmers. Urban agriculture's access to diverse shipping destinations let farmers select options based on production scale, which raised work efficiency for large-scale farmers in particular.

国土交通省 · 国土交通省 · Japan

Japan's Civic Green Space Certification system, based on Article 60 of the Urban Green Space Act, lets a private landowner who establishes and manages green space for community use obtain municipal certification for a management plan. Qualifying sites must be at least 300 square meters, have at least 20% greenery coverage, and be maintained for at least 5 years. Certified green spaces managed by a Midori Corporation receive a fixed-asset and city-planning tax reduction — in principle one-third off for 3 years (municipalities may set 1/2 to 1/6 by ordinance) — under a time-limited measure running through 31 March 2027.

国土交通省 · 国土交通省 · Japan

This MLIT page hosts MLIT's annual survey of city-planning designation status as of 31 March 2024, conducted with the cooperation of prefectural urban planning divisions. It provides open-data links to 14 categories of results — urbanization-area and district designations, urban redevelopment projects, location optimization plan status, and more. The page itself contains no aggregate figures; the numbers reside in the linked data files.

国土交通省 · 国土交通省 · Japan

This press release, published by Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism on March 18, 2025, reports the results of the 2025 official land price survey covering 26,000 points nationwide. The national average for all uses, residential land, and commercial land rose for the fourth consecutive year, with the rate of increase widening. Among the three major metropolitan areas, Tokyo and Osaka saw continued acceleration while Nagoya's increase slightly narrowed; regional areas rose for a fourth straight year, though the rate slightly narrowed in the four major regional cities (Sapporo, Sendai, Hiroshima, Fukuoka).

石井健太朗 · 大和不動産鑑定株式会社（DREA REPORT） · Japan

Published in April 2025 by Kentaro Ishii of Daiwa Real Estate Appraisal Co.'s Research & Marketing Department, this report analyzes Japan's 2025 official land price survey (as of January 1, 2025), based on MLIT data. It shows the national all-use average rose for a fourth consecutive year with an accelerating rate (+2.1% in 2025), driven by steady housing demand and strong retail/hotel demand in commercial areas. The residential land price increase was highest in Furano, Hokkaido, and the commercial increase was highest in Chitose, Hokkaido (site of semiconductor plant investment); among prefectural capitals, Naha posted the largest residential gain (+5.9%) and Saga the largest commercial gain (+9.0%).

東京都環境局 · 東京都環境局 · Japan

Tokyo's Green Plan System, based on the Tokyo Ordinance on Protection and Recovery of Natural Environment, requires development and building projects on sites of 1,000 sqm or more (250 sqm or more for national/local government sites) to meet a minimum greening standard. It cites heat island mitigation, air purification, and rainwater infiltration as goals, and publishes wall-greening guidelines and rooftop greening performance data.

東京都 · 東京都例規集 · Japan

Article 14 of the Tokyo ordinance requires developers building or renovating on sites of 1,000 sqm or more (250 sqm or more for national/local government sites) to submit a greening plan covering both ground-level and building-top (e.g. rooftop) greening to the governor before starting work, to report completion of the greening afterward, and to properly maintain the resulting green space. Enacted December 22, 2000, with the most recent amendment taking effect June 1, 2025.

国土交通省 · 国土交通省 · Japan

According to this December 12, 2025 announcement by Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, approximately 14.5 hectares of green roofs (equivalent to about two National Stadiums) and 4.6 hectares of green walls were newly installed nationwide in FY2024. Cumulative installations from FY2000 through FY2024 (25 years) reached about 633 hectares of green roofs and 131 hectares of green walls.