{
  "id": 16113628,
  "title": "Hokkaido population falls below 5 mil. in Japan's largest prefectural drop; Sapporo shrinks",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/22/hokkaido-population-falls-below-5-mil-in-japans-largest-prefectural",
  "topic": "world",
  "section": "World",
  "published": "2026-10-22T22:00:13.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "The Mainichi",
    "slug": "the-mainichi",
    "url": "https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20261022/p2a/00m/0na/027000c"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": null,
  "summary": "SAPPORO -- The population of Japan's northernmost prefecture Hokkaido dropped 244,342, or 4.7%, to 4,980,272 from 2020 to 2025, the largest decline of",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}