Nanmoku Faces Extinction as 70% of Its Residents Are Elderly — Now Its Seeking Young Peruvians to Repopulate It

Ketsi Yahuarcani (L) and Wendy Sangama, guests from Peru's Belen district, walk in Nanmoku village, Japan's Gunma prefecture on September 26, 2026. In a misty mountain village in Japan, residents recently welcomed unlikely guests from a Peruvian district along the Amazon River, seeing a chance to revive an ageing community facing extinction. Nanmoku village officials hope a sister-city agreement, which promotes cultural and people-to-people ties, will ultimately attract young people from Belen to live in Nanmoku, although how they might obtain residency remains unclear. (Credit: Photo by Rie KIKUCHI / AFP via Getty Images / To go with AFP story Japan-Peru-social-population-demographics, FOCUS by Natsuko Fukue and Junior Raborg)

The Briefing:

• Nanmoku — a fog-shrouded village of roughly 1,325 people in Japan's Gunma Prefecture — holds the title of Japan's most aged municipality, with nearly 70% of residents 65 or older and annual deaths far outnumbering births.
• In November 2025, Nanmoku signed a sister-city agreement with Belén, an impoverished Amazonian district near Iquitos in northeastern Peru, with the longer-term hope of drawing young Peruvians to settle permanently in the village.
• Two Peruvian students visited Nanmoku in the weeks leading up to the AFP's October 2026 report and expressed willingness to relocate — but no formal immigration pathway exists, and Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's government is simultaneously pushing to tighten rules on foreign nationals.