Toyama City Staff Suspected of Inflating Population in Census

Toyama, Sept. 29 (Jiji Press)--Staff of the Toyama city government may have inflated the central Japan city's population in the 2025 census, it was learned Tuesday.

On the day, the internal affairs ministry submitted a criminal complaint against unidentified city staff to the Toyama prefectural police department.

The city population is believed to have been padded by at least 2,000, and several city employees were possibly involved in the suspected overstatement.

According to revised data released by the ministry on Tuesday, the city had a population of 399,197, down from the preliminary figure of 402,133 released in May.

Earlier this month, officials from the ministry's Statistics Bureau visited the city government after data discrepancies were discovered. City employees are suspected of manipulating population data, including by counting households that field census takers removed.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]