The development of internal migration flow patterns in Japan

ABSTRACT Population decline is expected to continue to be a prominent feature of Japanese demography in future decades. Internal migration plays a significant role in dictating the intensity of population decline at the regional level. In this paper we visualize inter-prefecture internal migration flows between the eight regions of Japan in 2020 using a chord diagram to show the relative scales of the origin–destination migration flows between each region. In addition, we use an animated series of chord diagrams to show the development of internal migration between 1954 and 2020. We fix the axis of the sectors of the chord diagram in the animation to illustrate the rapid growth and then slow decline (post-1972) in the regional migration system, as well as the interruption in the movement patterns during 2011, due to the Great East Japan Earthquake.