Population of Japan drops for the first time

Japan's latest census confirmed the hard reality signaled long ago by shuttered shops and abandoned villages across the country: The population is shrinking.

Japan's population stood at 127.1 million last fall, down 0.7 percent from 128.1 million in 2010, according to results of the 2015 census, released on Friday. The 947,000 decline in the population in the past five years was the first since the count, taken once every five years, started in 1920.

Unable to count on a growing market and labor force to power economic expansion, the government has drawn up urgent measures to counter the falling birth rate.