2004

Traffic Deaths in the Municipalities of Japan (2004)
  The number of fatalities in traffic accidents in 2004 was 7,358, which represents a drop of 344 fatalities compared with the 7,702 fatalities that occurred in 2003, when the number of fatalities reached the 7,000 level for the first time in 46 years. On the other hand, the number of accidents and number of injuries exceeded those in 2003,albeit slightly, and were the worst in recorded history.These numbers continued to be grim, as the number of accidents exceeded 900,000 for the fifth year in a row, and the number of injuries was over the 1-million mark for the sixth year in a row.
  We at the Institute for Traffic Accident Research and Data Analysis compared the number of fatalities per 10,000 population nationwide since 1995, classified by city, ward, town, and village, to be used as data for various traffic safety activities performed by local public organizations and other related in stitutes and agencies.
  The number of fatalities in the table is the total number of people who died within 24 hour s after the occurrence of a traffic accident on a public road. Also, the data have been arranged accord ing to cities and prefectures with the largest populations to facilitate comparison between cities, war ds, towns, and villages of the same size.
Prefectures (Unit: Persons)
Hokkaido Aomori Iwate Miyagi Akita Yamagata Fukushima
Tokyo Kanagawa Saitama Chiba Ibaraki Tochigi Gunma
Yamanashi Niigata Nagano Toyama Ishikawa Fukui Aichi
Gifu Mie Shizuoka Osaka Hyogo Kyoto Shiga
Nara Wakayama Tottori Shimane Okayama Hiroshima Yamaguchi
Tokushima Kagawa Ehime Kochi Fukuoka Saga Nagasaki
Kumamoto Oita Miyazaki Kagoshima Okinawa

Summary
2004 traffic accidents and population
   2004
Public roads Expressways All roads
Accidents 938,394 13,797 952,191
Deaths 7,029 329 7,358
Injured 1,161,001 22,119 1,183,120
Population 126,824,166
NOTE 1: "Accidents" resulting in deaths and/or injuries.
NOTE 2: The population is determined from directories of cities, towns, and villages throughout the country and is current as of March 31, 2004.

Average fatalities on public roads by city, ward, town, and village
   Numbers of municipalities Fatalities Fatalities per 10,000 population
Average Previous year's average Previous year comparison Average Previous year's average Previous year comparison
Cities excluding
major cities /
Tokyo wards
669/23 5.79 6.08 -4.7% 0.51 0.52 -1.8%
Wards of major cities 137 4.90 5.33 -8.1% 0.33 0.35 -7.0%
Towns 1,734 1.11 1.12 -1.3% 0.87 0.91 -4.0%
Villages 481 0.53 0.52 -0.8% 1.20 1.22 -1.6%
Nationwide 3,074 2.29 2.22 -3.1% 0.55 0.58
-4.4%


Cities, wards, towns, and villages with the highest fatalities per 10,000 population
Cities excluding major cities / Tokyo wards Population Fatalities per 10,000 population
Fukagawaï¿?@city    (Hokkaido) 26,045 3.46
Yaita city    (Tochigi) 36,452 2.74
Yabu city    (Hyogo) 29,860 2.68
Sasayama city    (Hyogo) 46,941 2.56
Omaezaki city    (Shizuoka) 35,305 2.55
* Excluding major cities

Wards decreed by ordinance: 137 wards Population Fatalities per 10,000 population
Atsuta-ku    (Aichi) 61,735 1.30
Naniwa-ku   (Osaka) 46,751 1.07
Minami-ku    (Kyoto) 91,152 0.88
Minato-ku    (Aichi) 147,552 0.81
Wakamatsu-ku    (Fukuoka) 89,486 0.78
Kita-ku    (Osaka) 89,934 0.78


Towns: 1,734 towns Population Fatalities per 10,000 population
Hidaka-cho    (Hokkaido) 2,096 23.85
Kimobetsu-cho    (Hokkaido) 2,753 21.79
Aibetsu-cho    (Hokkaido) 3,916 12.77
Hatto-cho    (Tottori) 5,489 9.11
Takano-cho    (Hiroshima) 2,485 8.05


Villages: 481 villages Population Fatalities per 10,000 population
Oto-mura   (Nara) 1,224 24.51
Mitsuse-mura    (Saga) 1,654 18.14
Kitayama-mura    (Wakayama) 567 17.64
Narusawa-mura    (Yamanashi) 3,087 16.20
Namiai-mura    (Nagano) 746 13.40
Izumi-mura    (Fukui) 753 13.28
*Excluding major cities

Institute for Traffic Accident Research and Data Analysis (ITARDA)