Japan's population is just over 127 million. Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it is also spoken in emigrant communities (the largest of which are found in Brazil) and is estimated to be the language of 130 million people. There are approximately 180,000 immigrant native Japanese speakers residing in Hawaii, as well as thousands of other immigrant Japanese speakers in portions of the United States. (To request a copy of our proprietary report, "Foreign Speaker Demographics in the U.S. - Top 10 Languages in Every State," please contact us.

Japanese generally employs a subject-object-verb order, using particles to mark the grammatical functions of the words. It is common to omit subjects and objects if they are clear from previous context. The Japanese language does not specify gender or use plurals; nouns do not decline and almost all verbs are regular.

Japan is an urban society with only a small percentage of the workforce employed in the agriculture. Its top export industries include automobiles, consumer electronics, computers, semiconductors, and iron and steel. Additional key industries in Japan's economy are pharmaceuticals, textiles, and shipbuilding.

Shintoism and Buddhism are Japan's two principal religions. According to Japan-Guide.com they have been co-existing for several centuries. It also states that most Japanese consider themselves Buddhist, Shintoist, or both.

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Sources:
U.S. Census Bureau
U.S. State Department
Japan-Guide.com