Kyoko Watanabe moved to Miyagi Prefecture to help with disaster relief efforts following 3/11. She ended up building a ...

In Japanese, Akiya translates to “empty house”. The term refers to a residential property that has been unoccupied for a period of at least six months. Many in Japan have moved from rural ...

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

The number of these “akiya” (vacant) houses has reached 9 million nationwide, or 13.8 percent of the total number of homes in Japan, a government survey released on April 30 showed.

After all, it stood in a forest of shoulder-high weeds after being abandoned about seven years earlier — one of the millions of vacant houses known as akiya, Japanese for “empty house ...

Japan's Housing and Land Survey, conducted every five years, logged a record high of 8.49 million akiya in 2018. These abandoned houses have created "ghost villages" in Japan's rural prefectures ...

Swedish national Anton Wormann learned about an “akiya” abandoned vacant home in Tokyo and immediately requested a viewing. The wooden house showed clear signs it had been empty and ...

In contrast to our housing shortages, Japan’s shrinking population has driven a massive number of empty homes across its regions known as ‘akiya’. Which you can snap up for a fraction of ...