Are you seriously claiming that the places he visits are only <i>temporarily</i> depopulated because <i>everybody is on holiday</i>?!<p>He&#x27;s not pulling these stats out of his ass: the town of Yubari used to have 120,000 people, and now has 9,362.  This is of course extreme, but basically the entire countryside is following along the same lines.<p>Here&#x27;s a random prefecture (Aomori) on Kaso-Net, which shows the areas officially classified as &quot;depopulated&quot; by the Japanese government, meaning they&#x27;ve lost &gt;25% of their population: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kaso-net.or.jp&#x2F;map&#x2F;aomori.htm" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kaso-net.or.jp&#x2F;map&#x2F;aomori.htm</a><p>Red means it contains parts that are depopulated, yellow means it&#x27;s about to be, green means the area as a whole is already over the limit.