A record 839,138 Japanese nationals were living overseas on a long-term basis as of Oct. 1, up 3.4 percent from the previous high posted a year earlier, Foreign Ministry officials said Monday.
Female Japanese residing overseas in 2001 outnumbered males for the third consecutive year, with the percentage standing at 51.2 percent, according to the officials.
Long-term overseas residents are defined as those who have remained in a foreign country for three months or more, and includes those living in a foreign country with permanent residency status.
The annual survey is compiled using data that the ministry's overseas establishments have received from Japanese nationals living overseas. The information is used to work out safety and welfare improvements, the officials said.
The figures were useful for confirming the safety of Japanese after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, they said.
The largest proportion of Japanese -- 312,936 people -- were living in the U.S., followed by Brazil at 73,492 and Britain at 53,587, the same order as a year earlier, the officials said. China was in a close fourth with 53,357.
New York had the largest population of Japanese living abroad with 59,114 people, ahead of Los Angeles at 42,831 and Hong Kong with 24,536. Hong Kong nudged London out of third place in 2001, beating the British capital by 600.
The Asia-Pacific region saw the largest increase in the number of Japanese residents, with an 8.3 percent rise for the Oceanian region and 6.4 percent for Asia. Numbers were down in areas such as Central America, the Caribbean, South America, the Middle East and Africa.
Some 293,739, or 35 percent, of Japanese citizens living abroad were permanent residents, up 3 percent from a year before, while the remaining 545,399 were long-term stayers, up by 3.6 percent.