The total cultivated area of Japan was 4.65million hectares as of July 2007. This figure includes 2.53 million hectares of paddy fields and 2.12 million hectares of upland fields, and is 21,000 hectares (0.4%) less than the prior year.

For the upland fields, the breakdown is 1,172,000 hectares of what we consider “normal fields”, plus 323,900 hectares of fruit fields, and 624,000 hectares of grassland.

What might also be worth noting is that, with rice being a staple food for the Japanese people, the paddy fields occupy more than half of the total cultivated area.

　(Source: the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, as of July 15, 2007)