Shirakawa-go is famous for its gassho-zukuri farmhouses, which are more than two centuries old. These thatched-roof houses ...

Tucked away in Japan’s countryside, millions of abandoned homes – known as akiya – sit empty, waiting for a second life. With ...

But it’s not just fashionable hotels that are attracting visitors to Japan’s countryside ... abandoned houses and terraced rice fields in a rural region of Niigata Prefecture.

Have you had the feeling recently that everyone you know has been (or is about to go) to Japan? You’re not wrong. Last December there was an almost 30% increase in international visitors from the ...

The mayor’s answer was much more representative of the earnest, if puzzled, search for democracy that is going on nowadays in rural Japan.