Japan has lost 30% of its official beaches over 31 years — and aging isn't the culprit

Japan has lost nearly a third of its officially designated swimming beaches over the past 31 years, with climate-related factors — including extreme heat and coastal erosion — driving down visitor numbers and forcing closures.

Kyodo News reported Monday, citing data from the Japan Tourism Agency, that the number of summer swimming beaches fell from 1,379 in 1993 to 969 in 2024. That represents a 29.7 percent decline over 31 years.

The count held above 1,300 through the early 2000s before dropping below 1,000 for the first time in 2022, when the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe, and has continued to shrink since.

The figures are compiled from data collected by prefectures and municipalities. Under Japanese law, local governments and beach-operating associations must apply to prefectural authorities each year for permission to open a beach.

Kyodo News said that as summers in Japan have grown increasingly hot in recent years, more people are avoiding beaches out of concern over sunburn and heatstroke.

As visitor numbers have fallen, more local governments have opted to suspend beach operations.

Miura Kaigan beach in Kanagawa Prefecture near Tokyo has been closed since 2024 after the association that had been covering part of its operating costs ran into financial difficulties. That same year, Hakozukuri beach in Osaka Prefecture in western Japan also ceased operations.

Otake Kaigan Hokota beach in Ibaraki Prefecture, northeast of Tokyo, is a case of closure driven by coastal erosion — a phenomenon in which wave and tidal action gradually strips away sediment along a shoreline, causing the coastline to retreat inland.

Analysts attribute the erosion at many sites to sand extraction during Japan's rapid economic growth from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s, when large quantities of sand were dredged from rivers for construction, cutting off the natural supply of sediment to the coast.

Changes in ocean currents caused by breakwater construction have also been identified as a contributing factor in the decline.