What is Japan Neighborhoods and what information does it provide?

Updated

Japan Neighborhoods (japanneighborhoods.com) is a data-driven guide to Tokyo neighborhoods that combines official crime statistics, safety grades, and property price data in one place. It is useful if you are comparing wards before renting, buying, or booking a stay, and you want figures tied to named government sources rather than anecdotal impressions. The site covers 3,110+ neighborhoods across all 23 Tokyo wards, drawing on seven years of police data (2018–2024) plus census and land transaction records.

What data the site publishes

The homepage summarizes three core datasets and the tools built on them:

Data type What it shows Stated source
Crime statistics Recorded incidents per neighborhood; 70,081 incidents recorded in 2024 Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (警視庁)
Safety grades Letter grades (A–F) and incidents per 1,000 residents for each ward Derived from police data
Property prices Prices ranked by ward, plus a "Value Index" combining affordability and safety MLIT transaction data
Demographics Neighborhood-level population data Statistics Bureau of Japan (国勢調査)

The safety grade scale runs from A (safest) to F. On the homepage ranking, Suginami (A, 4.4 per 1,000), Setagaya (A, 4.8), and Nerima (A, 4.9) lead, while Chiyoda (F) and Shinjuku (F) sit at the bottom. Grades B through D fill the middle — for example, Ota and Meguro are B, Sumida is C, and Shibuya and Chuo are D.

Tools for comparing neighborhoods

Three features do most of the practical work:

  • Safety rankings — a ranked list of wards and neighborhoods by crime rate, including a linked list of the 25 safest neighborhoods.
  • Interactive crime map — all 3,110+ neighborhoods plotted and color-coded by safety grade, so you can zoom into a specific area rather than rely on ward averages.
  • Ward comparison pages — each of the 23 wards has its own page with detailed crime statistics, neighborhood breakdowns, and property data, and a comparison view lets you put wards side by side.

A sensible workflow: start with the ward ranking to shortlist two or three wards, open the crime map to check the specific neighborhoods you are considering, then use the ward pages to compare prices and the Value Index. Ward-level grades can hide variation — a B-grade ward may contain both very safe and less safe neighborhoods — so the map and neighborhood breakdowns matter more than the headline letter.

Cost and commercial elements

Browsing the site's data and tools is presented as free. Two parts of the site are commercial:

  • Real estate agent matching — the site offers to connect you with English-speaking, foreigner-friendly agents for yield analysis, described as a free, no-obligation service. The site does not publish the terms of that arrangement beyond this description.
  • Hotel links — hotel searches go through Booking.com, and the site states it may earn a commission from bookings, with prices and availability shown on Booking.com.

No subscription pricing is mentioned on the page, so treat the data as free to view but verify any agent or booking terms directly with the provider.

Limits to keep in mind

The dataset is Tokyo-only — all 23 wards — so it will not help with Osaka, Kyoto, or rural areas. Crime figures reflect recorded incidents, which depend on reporting and police practice, and the site's own framing ties safety grades to incidents per 1,000 residents, so sparsely populated or heavily commercial neighborhoods can read differently than residential ones. Use the numbers as a screening tool, then confirm details like commute, noise, and building condition through a viewing or a local contact.