Daily Japan updates
New land data and rain closures add practical checks for living in Japan
MLIT has released detailed prefectural land-price and evacuation data while expanding preventive closures at flood-prone national-highway underpasses.
Developments
Two infrastructure updates offer practical tools for decisions that foreign residents often make with incomplete local context: researching where to live and navigating roads during intense rain.
1. MLIT puts detailed 2026 land prices and updated evacuation points online
MLIT has added individual-location data from the July 1 prefectural land-price survey to its Real Estate Information Library and downloadable national geospatial datasets. The same update refreshes designated emergency-evacuation-site data to September 4. Users can compare price information with planning, population and hazard layers or download GIS, GML, GeoJSON and CSV files. These are research aids, not property valuations or guarantees about a particular home. (See the official data update)
2. Preventive rain closures expand to 22 national-highway underpasses
Following human harm associated with flooding during the August Chiba heavy rain, MLIT is adding 15 underpasses to its preventive-closure system, bringing the total to 22. Closures will use weather-disaster information and hourly rainfall, while regional bureaus will publish detailed local thresholds. Drivers should therefore treat the national announcement as advance context, not live road guidance. (Read the safety announcement)
What residents should take away
Public datasets can sharpen relocation research, but they do not replace a property inspection or local advice. During heavy rain, the same principle applies in real time: check regional road information and emergency alerts rather than relying on a remembered route.