Information as of 13 August 2026

This page is a relocation summary written by an advanced AI

It is not a personal opinion piece written by a human. An AI gathered official information published on the internet — municipal and national statistics, the Japan Meteorological Agency, railway companies, property portals — and rebuilt it into a form that someone considering a move can read and act on. Every figure carries a source link and the date it was checked, so please confirm anything that matters to you against the original document. Rules and prices change. Always check the latest information yourself before you sign anything.

Moving to Isumi City

Q: Which part of Isumi should I live in?

What matters in choosing is one thing: the coast or inland. There are 32 houses on the market in all — 15 in Misaki, 15 in Ohara, 2 in Isumi. Inland Isumi hardly ever puts a house up.

Q: How long does it take from Isumi to Tokyo?

🔴 Two things matter. Ohara is the only station where the Wakashio limited express stops, and the city writes that "Tokyo Station is about 70 minutes from JR Ohara Station by limited express. You can sit comfortably every morning on the way to work." And the Isumi Railway is not running trains at present; a replacement bus is running instead.

Q: What is the cheapest house you can buy in Isumi?

Sorted cheapest first, the bottom is ¥3,500,000 at Misaki-cho Iwakuma (built 1987, plot 279 m²). There are 32 on the market in all, 9 of them at or under ¥10,000,000.

Q: Is the disaster risk high in Isumi?

🔴 It is designated under all three: the Nankai Trough, the Tokyo inland earthquake and the Japan and Kuril trenches. The chance of intensity 6-lower or above within 30 years is 64.4% (20.7% for 6-upper or above), the figure for the sandy gravel terrace the city hall stands on.

Q: What are summer and winter like in Isumi?

The Sotobo climate makes summer cool and winter warm — on the figures for Katsuura next door to the south, the August daily high of 29.0°C is 2.3°C below Tokyo and the January daily low of 2.9°C is 1.7°C above it. The annual rainfall, though, is 400.7 mm more than Tokyo's.

Q: Is there a hospital in Isumi?

The main hospital in the city is Isumi Medical Centre (144 beds, a designated secondary emergency institution); at weekends and outside hours you must telephone first to check whether you can be seen. Tertiary emergency care is not in the city — by designation it is Higashi-Chiba Medical Centre (Togane City) — so measure at the viewing which one is nearest the house you are considering.

Q: What is the sewerage like in Isumi?

🔴 "Public sewerage" does not appear in the city's plans. This is a septic-tank town. Assume a second-hand property comes with a single-treatment septic tank or a night-soil tank, and budget for converting to a combined-treatment tank and for the yearly maintenance, emptying and statutory inspection (the city has a grant towards installation).

Q: Will the house I buy sell when I want to sell it?

With 32 on SUUMO, that is one for every 1,054 people — a thin market. 🔴 While Chiba Prefecture as a whole rose sharply in the Reiwa 8 official land price survey, residential land up 4.6%, Isumi City was −0.6%. At ¥16,600/m² it is an eighth of the prefectural average, and falling.

Q: Is Isumi's population falling?

33,717 people (1 August Reiwa 8), −25.5% from the peak of 43,547 in 1995, with an ageing rate of 42.4%. A high placing in the 2026 Inaka Gurashi no Hon and the label "a municipality at risk of disappearing" live in the same city.

72 minutes from Tokyo Station on the Wakashio limited express. In the 2026 edition of Inaka Gurashi no Hon it took first place in the Tokyo metropolitan area for the tenth year running, and in the class for cities of 30,000 to 50,000 people it was first in all four categories — one of the best-known places to move to in Japan right now. At the same time, Isumi City is classed as a "municipality at risk of disappearing" in the 2024 report of the Population Strategy Council. The city has two railways, the JR Sotobo Line and the Isumi Railway, and the Isumi Railway is currently running normally by replacement bus (trains are expected back around autumn 2027). What follows works through the houses on the market now, the tsunami and landslide picture, and the money it takes each year once you live here.

Tokyo Sta.,

72 min

the Wakashio limited express

Homes for sale

32 listings

¥3,500,000–

Akiya bank

5 on offer

🔴 to let only

Ageing rate

42.4%

2020 Census

Summer (August daily high)

29.0℃

2.3°C lower than Tokyo (measured at Katsuura)

Winter (January daily low)

2.9℃

1.7°C higher than Tokyo (measured at Katsuura)

⛰ National and quasi-national parks 🚐 RV parks2

National and quasi-national parks: Minami Boso Quasi-National Park / RV parks: RV Park ISUMI Glamping Resort & Spa SOLAS, RV Park NANSO CAMP
Sources: national and quasi-national parks judged from the Ministry of the Environment boundary data and others (details of the sources in §17) (checked 21 August 2026) / RV parks from the Japan RV Association list of certified RV parks (checked 20 August 2026). 🔴 Only what a place has is shown — a town without one is not worse for it.

Last verified 2026-08-13

CHAPTER 01First, what kind of place Isumi is

The city was formed on 5 December 2005 by the merger of Isumi Town, Ohara Town and Misaki Town. It covers 157.4 km² and lies within 75 km of central Tokyo.

Map of Isumi City

You can zoom and move around. The marker is the Ohara office (the main city office). The city's own documents describe the coast as "a long shallow shoreline, an area easily affected by tsunami".
Map: © OpenStreetMap contributors

What should I know first about moving to Isumi?

A city formed in December 2005 by the merger of Isumi Town, Ohara Town and Misaki Town, covering 157.4 km² and within 75 km of central Tokyo. The city's own documents describe the coast as "a long shallow shoreline, an area easily affected by tsunami".

CHAPTER 02Three areas, three ways of living

Isumi City was formed in December 2005 by the merger of Isumi Town, Ohara Town and Misaki Town. What matters in choosing is one thing: the coast or inland. There are 32 houses on the market in all — 15 in Misaki, 15 in Ohara, 2 in Isumi. Inland Isumi hardly ever puts a house up.

The three districts

District	Position	Character, and how the population is moving
Ohara	coast	The main city office (Ohara 7400-1). Ohara Station on the Sotobo Line, where the Wakashio limited express stops. Hiari, where Cainz Ohara and Beisia Isumi-Ohara stand together, is the centre of the shopping catchment. 21,271 in 1990 → 18,005 in 2015 (−15.4%)
Misaki	coast	Taito and Chojamachi. The Misaki office. −1.7% (−234 people) against 1990, the least fallen of the three districts
Isumi	inland	Kuniyoshi. The Isumi office. Isumi Medical Centre (Kariya). 8,145 in 1990 → 6,770 in 2015 (−16.9%). 🔴 Notified on 1 April 2022 as an area treated as depopulated

The projected ageing rate for 2040 is 49.1% in Isumi, 47.5% in Ohara and 46.8% in Misaki. The population of the Isumi area peaked at 11,804 in Showa 25. Sources:Isumi City, Comprehensive management plan for public facilities (PDF)／the same, Plan for the sustainable development of depopulated areas (PDF)／the same, Getting to the city office/ Verified 2026-08-12

The three districts, seen through the houses on the market

District	Rough elevation	Nearest station	Price range / median
Misaki the coast / Taito, Chojamachi	4〜16m	Chojamachi 7, Taito 5	15 listings, ¥3,500,000–250,000,000 (median ¥15,990,000) / a median elevation of 6 m, the lowest in the city. Built between 1978 and 2022, so newer houses come up here too. At −1.7% against 1990 it is the district that has fallen the least of the three.
Ohara the coast / the main city office	6〜77m	Naminohana 6, Ohara 3, Kazusa-Nakagawa 3	15 listings, ¥3,980,000–37,000,000 (median ¥16,800,000, the highest in the city) / median elevation 22 m. Ohara is the only station where the Wakashio limited express stops (§3). Hiari, where Cainz and Beisia stand together, is the centre of the shopping catchment (§7)
Isumi inland / Kuniyoshi	14〜49m	Kazusa-Higashi, Kuniyoshi	Just 2 listings, ¥5,200,000–12,500,000 / median elevation 32 m. This is the district with Isumi Medical Centre (Kariya). 🔴 Notified on 1 April 2022 as an area treated as depopulated.

Elevation is the value obtained by putting each listing's own map coordinates, as carried on its SUUMO page, through the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan elevation API (rounded to 10 m). "Rough elevation" in the table is the range forthe homes currently for saleis the range of elevations of the listings, not of the district as a whole. The price ranges, counts and nearest stations are the whole of the 32 SUUMO listings tallied by district / checked 18 August 2026

How life differs by district

Ohara — the limited express stops, and the shops are here15 listings, median ¥16,800,000 (¥3,980,000–37,000,000) / median elevation 22 m. The main city office, and Ohara Station where the Wakashio stops.
Suits people commuting to Tokyo by limited express, or wanting to drive less
Watch for a tsunami projection of T.P. 15.8 m, with effects starting in under a minute (§5). Some listings sit at 6 metres. Check the elevation of the exact address.

Misaki — the district that has fallen the least15 listings, median ¥15,990,000 (¥3,500,000–250,000,000) / a median elevation of 6 m. −1.7% against 1990, clearly apart from Ohara (−15.4%) and Isumi (−16.9%).
Suits people looking for a newer house near the sea (one built in 2022 is on the market)
Watch for the lowest-lying belt in the city. Look at the tsunami and storm-surge projections first

Isumi — an area treated as depopulatedJust 2 listings (¥5,200,000 and ¥12,500,000) / median elevation 32 m. Isumi Medical Centre is here.
Suits people who want a quiet inland village, or who weigh being close to the clinic heavily
Watch for houses simply not coming up. Either you wait, or you start from the vacant-home bank (to let, §4)

Sources: the prices, elevations and nearest stations are this site's tally of all 32 SUUMO second-hand detached house listings in Isumi City, Chiba Prefecture / the population movements and the depopulation notice are as in the table above / the tsunami figures are from §5 and the shops and hospitals from the same sources as §7 / checked 18 August 2026

Which part of Isumi should I live in?

What matters in choosing is one thing: the coast or inland. There are 32 houses on the market in all — 15 in Misaki, 15 in Ohara, 2 in Isumi. Inland Isumi hardly ever puts a house up.

CHAPTER 03Trains and cars — how you get around

The two things that matter most in getting about Isumi are that Ohara is the only station where the Wakashio limited express stops, and that the Isumi Railway is not running trains at present.

Where the stations are — the limited express from Tokyo arrives at Ohara

★Ohara Station — Wakashio stop and JR/Isumi Railway interchange station JR Sotobo Line Isumi Railway, Isumi Line (dashed)

There are 10 stations in the city. The JR Sotobo Line runs north to south along the coast (Taito, Chojamachi, Mikado, Ohara, Naminohana), and the Isumi Railway runs west inland from Ohara (Nishi-Ohara, Kazusa-Higashi, Nittano, Kuniyoshi, Kazusa-Nakagawa); the two meet at Ohara Station. Torami Station at the top of the diagram is in Ichinomiya Town to the north and Onjuku Station at the bottom is in Onjuku Town to the south; they are included because a listing near the boundary sometimes has one of them as its nearest station. Positions, bearings and scale follow the real coordinates (station coordinates from OpenStreetMap, districts from the Geospatial Information Authority). You can scroll sideways.
Elevation is not shown on this diagram (the representative point of a town can return a hillside value even for a coastal district). A guide to each listing's elevation is given in the table below.

Coming from Tokyo, the station you get off at is Ohara. Tokyo Station → [Wakashio limited express, 72 min] → Ohara Station. It is the only station in the city where the limited express stops, and the Isumi Railway starts from here as well. The main city office is beside the station too (Ohara 7400-1).

When you look at a listing, check first which line its nearest station is on. The table below carries the station name and the journey time. At a JR Sotobo Line station (Taito, Chojamachi, Mikado, Ohara, Naminohana) the trains are running as usual. At an Isumi Railway station (Nishi-Ohara, Kazusa-Higashi, Nittano, Kuniyoshi, Kazusa-Nakagawa), a replacement bus is running normally in place of the train for now (see the next item).

The Isumi Railway is running by replacement bus at present

Route	The Isumi Line, Ohara to Kazusa-Nakano, 26.8 km and 14 stations (opened 24 March 1988). Six of them are in Isumi City: Ohara, Nishi-Ohara, Kazusa-Higashi, Nittano, Kuniyoshi and Kazusa-Nakagawa
Running now	🔴 Running normally by replacement bus (the Isumi Railway's own service information). Following the derailment of 4 October 2024, trains are suspended over the whole line
Getting the trains back	Expected around autumn 2027 (Reiwa 9). The cost is put at about ¥1,450,000,000, and support has been sought from the prefecture and the municipalities concerned
Otaki to Kazusa-Nakano	Both the cost and the timing are still being surveyed (this stretch is outside Isumi City, in Otaki Town)

A listing whose nearest station is on the Isumi Railway is reached by replacement bus for now. That covers five stations: Nishi-Ohara, Kazusa-Higashi, Nittano, Kuniyoshi and Kazusa-Nakagawa. The replacement bus timetable is on the Isumi Railway's own site. The trains are expected back in autumn 2027, so when you look at a house inland (the Isumi area), settle first how you will manage commuting, medical appointments and shopping by car and replacement bus until then.

On the coast (Ohara and Misaki) the nearest station will be on the JR Sotobo Line (Taito, Chojamachi, Mikado, Ohara, Naminohana), where trains run as usual. Sources: Isumi Railway, official site, service information（"We are running normally by replacement bus. / Following the derailment between Kuniyoshi and Kazusa-Nakagawa, services are suspended over the whole line. Recovery is expected around autumn 2027."） / the same, "On the restoration of the Isumi Railway" (2 June 2025) / the same, company profile / Chiba Prefecture, assessment of the Isumi Railway's management / checked 13 August 2026

the Wakashio limited express	Tokyo 11:00 → Ohara 12:12, 72 minutes (Wakashio 7). Going the other way, Ohara 12:23 → Tokyo 13:36, 73 minutes is the fastest. On a weekday there are 11 trains towards Tokyo and 10 towards Katsuura and Awa-Kamogawa (2 in each direction run only on certain days). Ohara is the only station in the city where the limited express stops; Taito, Chojamachi, Mikado and Naminohana are served by local trains
Limited express ticket	The Wakashio is fully reserved (no unreserved seats). One adult one way is ¥920 with an Ekinet ticketless booking, ¥1,020 for a paper ticket, ¥1,280 bought on board (Tokyo to Ohara falls in the "up to 100 km" band). The basic fare of ¥1,790 (¥1,782 by IC) is extra
Local trains	114 minutes by Sobu Line rapid plus the Sotobo Line
Driving	The city gives three routes. (1) Keiyo Road → Togane Toll Road → Kujukuri Toll Road → Route 128; (2) Keiyo Road (Soga IC) → Sotobo Toll Road → Prefectural Route 21 (via Mobara); (3) Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line → Ken-O Expressway (Ichihara-Tsurumai IC) → Route 297 (via Otaki). Just under 2 hours to Yokohama
Getting about within the city	What the city's own access and public transport pages list is the city circular bus, the Isumi shuttle bus and the shared taxi

The journey times, frequencies and stopping stations areJR East timetable, Ohara Station(August 2026 edition) andthe same, Sotobo Line station list, worked out by this site against every train. The timetables for Taito, Chojamachi, Mikado and Naminohana carry only "no mark = local" in their legend, with no symbol for a limited express. The all-reserved seating is fromJR East frequently asked questions("as every seat is reserved… there are no unreserved seats").The limited express charge is the amount for the "up to 100 km" band, taken by matching the fare table in the JR East press release of 27 October 2023 ("Limited express trains for the Boso area will run fully reserved") against the official Ekinet price list, which puts Ohara in the same band as Mobara and Kimitsu (both PDFs can no longer be fetched directly, so they were confirmed through the web archive). The basic fare is fromIsumi City, Getting hereand the value published by Ekitan / checked 13 August 2026 Sources: the journey times, fares, frequencies and the Isumi Railway's operating status are the same as in the table above (JR East / the Isumi Railway's own service information / Isumi City, Getting here) / checked 18 August 2026

✈ Airports

The nearest is Narita International Airport (a hub airport under company management), about 56.1 km in a straight line. Next is Tokyo International Airport (about 58.1 km in a straight line). 🔴 That is a straight line. It is neither the road distance nor the time it takes — check the actual route in the operators' timetables.

🛣 Expressway junctions

There is no expressway entrance or junction inside this area. You will use an interchange in a neighbouring town.

Sources: airports fromNational Land Numerical Information, "Airports", FY2021 edition (category names followthe MLIT list of airports ) / expressway junctions fromthe same, "Expressways time series", 2025 edition, current data only (what is open today). Both were overlaid onthe same, "Administrative boundaries", 2026and judged by machine to fall inside this area / verified 2026-08-21

How long does it take from Isumi to Tokyo?

🔴 Two things matter. Ohara is the only station where the Wakashio limited express stops, and the city writes that "Tokyo Station is about 70 minutes from JR Ohara Station by limited express. You can sit comfortably every morning on the way to work." And the Isumi Railway is not running trains at present; a replacement bus is running instead.

CHAPTER 04Homes actually on the market right now

Listed cheapest first. Tapping one opens the listing page with photographs.

Sort

"Nearest the station first" converts everything to minutes — a walk of ◯ min, ◯ min by bus plus ◯ min from the stop, ◯ km by car (reckoned at 30 km/h) — and compares those. Listings with no such information always appear last, whatever the sort.

Misaki-cho Iwakuma¥3,500,000Misaki (the coast)Elev. approx. 20 m / Land 279 m² (84 tsubo) / Building 95 m² (29 tsubo) / built 1987 / Torami Sta. 71 min walk9 photos →

Ohara¥3,980,000Ohara (the coast)Elev. approx. 10 m / Land 236 m² (71 tsubo) / Building 103 m² (31 tsubo) / built 1991 / Ohara Station 25 min walk9 photos →

Ozawa¥4,990,000Ohara (the coast)Elev. approx. 10 m / Land 527 m² (159 tsubo) / Building 136 m² (41 tsubo) / built 1976 / Naminohana Sta. 2 min walk7 photos →

Takadani¥5,200,000Isumi (inland)Elev. approx. 50 m / Land 466 m² (141 tsubo) / Building 84 m² (25 tsubo) / built 2009 / Kazusa-Higashi Sta. 14 min walk2 photos →

Misaki-cho Izawa¥6,580,000Misaki (the coast)Elev. approx. 0 m / Land 294 m² (89 tsubo) / Building 79 m² (24 tsubo) / built 1978 / Chojamachi Sta. 8 min walk10 photos →

Misaki-cho Shiigi¥7,000,000Misaki (the coast)Elev. approx. 10 m / Land 298 m² (90 tsubo) / Building 175 m² (53 tsubo) / built 1997 / Taito Sta. 9 min walk9 photos →

Misaki-cho Ebado 1945-3¥7,500,000Misaki (the coast)Elev. approx. 10 m / Land 230 m² (70 tsubo) / Building 86 m² (26 tsubo) / built 1989 / Chojamachi Sta. 15 min walk7 photos →

Misaki-cho Oshibi 1248-10 property photo

Misaki-cho Oshibi 1248-10¥7,800,000Misaki (the coast)Elev. approx. 10 m / Land 215 m² (65 tsubo) / Building 92 m² (28 tsubo) / built 1996 / Chojamachi Sta., 4.0km10 photos →

Ohara¥9,800,000Ohara (the coast)Elev. approx. 10 m / Land 163 m² (49 tsubo) / Building 63 m² (19 tsubo) / built 1975 / Naminohana Sta. 28 min walk9 photos →

Shima¥12,500,000Isumi (inland)Elev. approx. 10 m / Land 1342 m² (406 tsubo) / Building 71 m² (21 tsubo) / built 1987 / Kuniyoshi Sta. 39 min walk10 photos →

Misaki-cho Ebado¥12,800,000Misaki (the coast)Elev. approx. 10 m / Land 281 m² (85 tsubo) / Building 113 m² (34 tsubo) / built 1993 / Mikado Sta. 13 min walk10 photos →

Misaki-cho Ebado¥12,800,000Misaki (the coast)Elev. approx. 10 m / Land 444 m² (134 tsubo) / Building 141 m² (43 tsubo) / built 1981 / Chojamachi Sta. 30 min walk10 photos →

Sakuda 793-1¥12,800,000Ohara (the coast)Elev. approx. 30 m / Land 1172 m² (354 tsubo) / Building 150 m² (45 tsubo) / built 1974 / Kazusa-Nakagawa Sta. 22 min walk10 photos →

Sakuda¥12,800,000Ohara (the coast)Elev. approx. 30 m / Land 1172 m² (355 tsubo) / Building 150 m² (45 tsubo) / built 1974 / Kazusa-Nakagawa Sta., 1.7km8 photos →

The photographs are the images carried on SUUMO. They disappear once a listing ends. Check the real condition of a property on site.

See all 32 on SUUMO → Sources: SUUMO second-hand detached house listings for Isumi City, Chiba Prefecture. All 32 SUUMO listings collected (from ¥3,500,000) / checked 12 August 2026. The elevation is the value from the Geospatial Information Authority elevation API for the map coordinates carried in each SUUMO listing (rounded to 10 m). For an exact elevation seeGSI Maps .

Isumi City's vacant-home bank is for letting only. You cannot buy through it. The city's own description says it "publishes information on letting vacant houses registered by owners of detached houses in Isumi City who do not live in them and who will offer them to let". All 92 listed are marked "◆to let◆", 5 are currently on offer and the other 87 are let or under negotiation. A contract must go through an estate agent in the city that has an agreement with it; the city takes no part in the negotiation or the contract. Commercial use such as short-term letting is not allowed as a rule.

In Isumi City the way in to buying is the 32 listings on the open market (the table above). The vacant-home bank is a counter for people who want to rent first and try living here. Sources: Isumi City, the vacant-home bank scheme / the same, list of properties (counted as at 12 August 2026) / checked 12 August 2026

There is a grant towards buying a home (but it is reduced from July 2026)

Category	Reiwa 8 (2026), 6/30 to	From 1 July Reiwa 8
New build, younger household	¥800,000	¥600,000 with a builder in the city / ¥400,000 from outside
New build, household with children	¥1,000,000	¥800,000 with a builder in the city / ¥600,000 from outside
Second-hand house	up to ¥800,000	up to ¥600,000 (within a tenth of the purchase price of the building)
Floor area condition	50 m² or more	eased to 40 m² or more

A younger household means the applicant or their spouse is 39 or under at the time of contract; a household with children means one with a child aged 18 or under.An intention to settle in the city for 10 years or moreis required. Applications must be made within a year of the completion date or the sale contract date, and within the budget. Sources:Isumi City, Grant towards the cost of acquiring a home for furusato settlement/ Verified 2026-08-12

Akiya bank

Isumi City's vacant-home bank handles letting only; nothing is registered for sale. 6 are currently on offer. Every property listed in this chapter is on the open market. (as checked on 17 August 2026)

What is the cheapest house you can buy in Isumi?

Sorted cheapest first, the bottom is ¥3,500,000 at Misaki-cho Iwakuma (built 1987, plot 279 m²). There are 32 on the market in all, 9 of them at or under ¥10,000,000.

CHAPTER 05Is the ground safe?

Is this town inside a national earthquake-preparedness zone?

For each major earthquake, national law designates the areas where preparation is to be advanced. Whether a town is designated tells you directly how the national government views the shaking and tsunami expected there.

Nankai Trough Earthquake Disaster Prevention Promotion Area	Designated
Tokyo Inland Earthquake Emergency Measures Area	Designated
Japan Trench / Kuril Trench Earthquake Disaster Prevention Promotion Area	Designated
Shaking of intensity 6-lower or above within 30 years	64.4% (6-upper or above: 20.7%) at Isumi City Hall. Surface ground AVS30 395 m/s, sandy gravel terrace

This probability is for the single 250-metre grid square the city hall stands in. The Isumi City town hall stands onsandy-gravel plateau(AVS30 395 m/s), and the 64.4% above is the figure for that point. Even within Isumi City it changes a great deal between the low ground along the rivers and the terraces. When a listing interests you, look it up by its street address.Enter an address on the J-SHIS map and it shows the probability and the ground for that 250-metre mesh.

Look up an address on J-SHIS → Designations from the Cabinet Office list of designated municipalities (Nankai Trough Earthquake Disaster Prevention Promotion Area／Tokyo Inland Earthquake Emergency Measures Area／Japan Trench / Kuril Trench Earthquake Disaster Prevention Promotion Area ) / probability and surface ground from theNational Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience, J-SHIS earthquake hazard information API (2024 edition, average case, all earthquakes), queried at the town hall coordinates / verified 2026-08-13

Tsunami — T.P. 15.8 m, effects starting in under a minute

Municipality	Maximum tsunami height	Time to the highest water	Area flooded
Minamiboso City	25.2m	—	—
Onjuku Town	18.1m	18 min	236ha
Tateyama City	17.0m	—	—
Katsuura City	16.4m	11 min	448ha
Isumi City	15.8m	19 min	915ha
Ichinomiya Town	10.2m	33 min	1,017ha

For tsunami, look not at "designated zones" but at the prefecture's flooding projection map. Chiba Prefecture has designated no tsunami disaster warning zone or special warning zone anywhere in the prefecture (none designated). So "no zone designation" in the statutory disclosure applies to every property in Chiba, and whether a particular property floods is checked on the prefecture's projection map linked below. The prefecture's projection is a maximum tsunami height of T.P. 15.8 m, 19 minutes to the highest water, effects starting in under a minute, and 915 hectares flooded. The prefecture's commentary adds that "a comparatively high tsunami, close to the maximum height, may arrive earlier than the time given for the maximum height". The city has designated 104 emergency tsunami evacuation places and is planning tsunami evacuation towers. Chiba Prefecture's tsunami flooding projection was set and published on 13 November Heisei 30. The projection is for "the largest class of tsunami (once in a thousand years or rarer)". Sources: Chiba Prefecture, on the Act on Development of Tsunami-Resilient Communities / the same, commentary (PDF) / the same, flooding projection map (Ichinomiya Town, Isumi City, Mutsuzawa Town; PDF) / Isumi City, regional resilience plan (PDF) / checked 12 August 2026

Landslides — a "seaside town" with 1,549 zones, among the most in the prefecture

Warning zones (total)

1,549

Reiwa 8 (2026), 8/7as of

Steep-slope collapse

1,365

Debris flow

2 landslip

Special warning notices

1,412 listings

red zones

That is more than Ichihara City (1,486) or Minamiboso City (1,490). Isumi City reads as a place of the sea, but the inland valleys and satoyama hold countless steep slopes. An old farmhouse or a house on high ground is quite likely to fall in a red zone, and if it does, building restrictions apply and the value is affected. Always check the prefecture's list before you buy. Source: Chiba Prefecture, list of landslide warning zones (Chiba as a whole: 20,661 warning, 19,545 special warning) / checked 12 August 2026

The 2019 Boso Peninsula typhoon — it was the power cut, not the houses

Category	Isumi City	Chiba Prefecture as a whole
Deaths	not recorded (0)	9 people
Homes destroyed	not recorded (0)	409 buildings
Homes half destroyed	11 buildings	4,281 buildings
Homes partly damaged	256 buildings	71,624 buildings
Non-residential buildings destroyed	15 listings	—
Power cuts	—	up to 641,000 households
Water supply cut	—	133,474 households

Chiba Prefecture applied the Disaster Relief Act on the grounds of a power cut — something with almost no precedent in Japan. Damage to homes in Isumi City was comparatively light, but across the prefecture up to 641,000 households lost power. The city afterwards signed a basic agreement with TEPCO Power Grid on restoring supply, on 16 June 2020, and has written "preventive felling to stop power cuts" — cutting trees before they bring the lines down — into its regional resilience plan. In other words, the city itself treats this as a standing problem.

A satoyama house surrounded by trees carries the risk of a long power cut from a fallen tree or a broken service line. When the power goes, the well pump, the septic tank blower and the hot water stop too. No primary source could be found giving the number of households or the number of days without power for Isumi City alone. Sources: Chiba Prefecture Disaster Prevention and Crisis Management Department, "Typhoon 15 of Reiwa 1 (report 128)" / Chiba Prefecture, verification report on the response to the Reiwa 1 Boso Peninsula typhoon and others (PDF) / Isumi City, regional resilience plan (PDF) / checked 12 August 2026

When a property interests you, open these four

Overlay Hazard MapMinistry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism

Enter an address and it shows tsunami, flood and landslide overlaid on one map. Start here.
Open →
Isumi City flood and tsunami hazard mapIsumi City

Tsunami updated in fiscal 2012, floods in fiscal 2023. It is now published as a web map.
Open →
Chiba Prefecture list of landslide warning zonesChiba Prefecture

Of the 1,549 zones, 1,412 carry a special warning notice. For a satoyama or hillside house, always check here.
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Chiba Prefecture flood projection maps for the Isumi River systemChiba Prefecture

It covers the Isumi River and 10 tributaries (the Ebado, Ochiai, Yamada, Ono, Kubo, Nishibeta, Sawayama, Hirasawa, Nishihata and Koshinden). There are maps of the zone where flooding could collapse a house as well.
Open → Largest projected scale, PDF →

Is the disaster risk high in Isumi?

🔴 It is designated under all three: the Nankai Trough, the Tokyo inland earthquake and the Japan and Kuril trenches. The chance of intensity 6-lower or above within 30 years is 64.4% (20.7% for 6-upper or above), the figure for the sandy gravel terrace the city hall stands on.

CHAPTER 06What summer and winter are like

The climate figures are those for Katsuura (the next town south, 12 m above sea level), the Japan Meteorological Agency station nearest Isumi City.

Tokyo

Elev.25 m

month 8 highest31.3°C

August minimum23.5°C

month 1 highest9.8°C

January minimum1.2°C

Isumi (Katsuura)

Katsuura Elev.12 m

month 8 highest29.0°C

August minimum23.5°C

month 1 highest11.1°C

January low2.9°C

Difference (Katsuura − Tokyo)

Annual rainfall is +400.7 mm

month 8 highest-2.3°C

August low±0°C

month 1 highest+1.3°C

January low+1.7°C

The twelve months of temperature, set out as they are

The left end of each bar is the average daily low for that month and the right end the average daily high (Isumi, measured at Katsuura; 30-year averages for 1991–2020).

month 1

2.9〜11.1℃

month 2

3.1〜11.4℃

month 3

6.1〜13.9℃

month 4

10.5〜17.7℃

month 5

14.9〜21.2℃

month 6

18.4〜23.8℃

month 7

21.7〜26.7℃

month 8

23.5〜29.0℃

month 9

20.9〜26.7℃

month 10

15.8〜22.3℃

month 11

10.6〜18.1℃

month 12

5.5〜13.5℃

-2℃9℃21℃32℃

10.8 days / 6.0 days

10.8 tropical nights (Tokyo 17.8) and 6.0 winter days (Tokyo 15.2).
These are the figures for what summer nights and winter mornings are like against Tokyo

Days per year	Isumi (Katsuura)	Tokyo
Tropical nights minimum 25°C or above	10.8 days	17.8 days
Days above 35°C maximum 35°C or above	0.0 days	4.8 days
Days above 30°C maximum 30°C or above	16.6 days	52.1 days
Frost days minimum below 0°C	6.0 days	15.2 days
Days below freezing all day maximum below 0°C	0.0 days	0.0 days

For snow, the annual total snowfall is 1cm and the normal for maximum snow depth is 1cm.

Source:Japan Meteorological Agency, the normals for Katsuura (by month) /the same, day counts by class (view=a2)／the same, Tokyo (all 30-year averages for 1991–2020) / verified 2026-08-14

The winter morning is 1.7°C warmer than Tokyo. The January daily low is 2.9°C, above Tokyo's 1.2°C. Among the places surveyed here, this is one of the few where winter is warmer than Tokyo (Kasama is −3.4°C, and the listings in Tsumagoi sit at around 1,100 metres). In summer the daily high is 29.0°C, 2.3°C below Tokyo, but the daily low is 23.5°C, the same as Tokyo — the nights are as warm as Tokyo's. And the annual rainfall is 1,998.9 mm, about 1.25 times Tokyo's. It is a place that is warm but wet.

Sources: Japan Meteorological Agency normals (1991–2020)Katsuura,Tokyo / the station list is fromJapan Meteorological Agency, list of regional weather stations (PDF)/ Verified 2026-08-12

What are summer and winter like in Isumi?

The Sotobo climate makes summer cool and winter warm — on the figures for Katsuura next door to the south, the August daily high of 29.0°C is 2.3°C below Tokyo and the January daily low of 2.9°C is 1.7°C above it. The annual rainfall, though, is 400.7 mm more than Tokyo's.

CHAPTER 07Shops, hospitals, schools

Hospitals — which critical care centre is nearest

The main hospital in the city	Isumi Medical Centre (Kariya 1177, 144 beds). It is run by the Kuniyoshi National Health Insurance Hospital Association (Isumi City, Otaki Town and Onjuku Town). The departments are internal medicine, diabetes and endocrinology, neurology, paediatrics, orthopaedics, dermatology, urology, ophthalmology, ENT, rehabilitation and radiology
Secondary emergency care	A designated emergency medical institution. The hospital's own site states plainly that at weekends and outside hours you must telephone first to check whether you can be seen
Tertiary emergency care	What is designated within "Sanbu-Chosei-Isumi", the secondary medical region Isumi City belongs to, is Higashi-Chiba Medical Centre (Togane City). Around it there are also Kameda Medical Centre (Kamogawa City), Teikyo University Chiba Medical Centre (Ichihara City) and Kimitsu Chuo Hospital (Kisarazu City). Measuring for yourself, at the viewing, which is nearest to the house you are considering is worth the trouble
Giving birth	The city's own plan states that "although there are specialist paediatric and obstetric institutions, there is no clinic where a baby can be delivered"
Telephone advice	24-hour health advice line, 0120-143-251 (for residents of Isumi City, Katsuura City, Onjuku Town and Otaki Town only; 24 hours, 365 days)

No primary source could be found giving the distance or journey time from Isumi City to each critical care centre. Sources:Isumi Medical Centre, hospital outline／Chiba Prefecture, on the designation of critical care centres／Isumi City, Plan for the sustainable development of depopulated areas (PDF)/ Verified 2026-08-12

Schools — 100% organic rice at lunch, and free school meals

FY2015

11%

4 t of organic rice

FY2016

40%

16t

FY2017

70%

28t

FY2018

100%

42t

The rice in the school meals became 100% organic in four years. An organic rice-growing model scheme started in 2014 (with technical support from the Private Rice Research Institute, at ¥40,000 per 10 ares). The area under it went from 22 ares in 2013 to 2,000 ares across 23 households in 2018. For organic rice the farmer receives ¥20,000 or more per 60 kg through the JA (against ¥13,000 for conventional rice), and the city meets the difference. A food and farming education programme of 30 lessons of 45 minutes runs through the year. On top of that, from October 2022 school meals at primary and junior high schools are fully subsidised — in effect free. Parents of children attending a primary, junior high or special school outside the city qualify too.

What is 100% is the rice; vegetables have been switching to organic in part since 2018. Sources: Isumi City, "An outline of farming in Isumi City" (published on the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries site, PDF) / Isumi City, we subsidise school meal charges for primary and junior high pupils / checked 12 August 2026

Primary schools	9 schools (Isumi, Naminohana, Ohara, Tokai, Higashi, Choja, Nakane, Taito and Furusawa). In the Isumi area three merged into Isumi Primary School, which opened in a new building in 2019
Lower-secondary schools	3 schools (Kuniyoshi, Ohara and Misaki). Kuniyoshi Junior High moved into a new building in 2020
Upper secondary	There is one high school in the city, Chiba Prefectural Ohara High School (a comprehensive school with four streams: general, horticulture, marine science, and life and welfare)

Source:Isumi City, list of public primary schools／Chiba Prefectural Ohara High School/ Verified 2026-08-12

Shopping — the large stores are gathered at Hiari

Home centres	Cainz Ohara (Hiari 274)
Supermarkets	Beisia Foods Park Isumi-Ohara (Hiari 41) / Super Sendo Ohara-Misaki (Misaki-cho Ebado) / Leo Misaki (Misaki-cho Izumi) / Superland Isumi (Yamasa)

Cainz Ohara and Beisia Isumi-Ohara stand in much the same place (Hiari, in the Ohara area), and that is the centre of the city's shopping catchment. Official opening hours could only be obtained forCainz, so the others are given by name and address only / checked 12 August 2026

Is there a hospital in Isumi?

The main hospital in the city is Isumi Medical Centre (144 beds, a designated secondary emergency institution); at weekends and outside hours you must telephone first to check whether you can be seen. Tertiary emergency care is not in the city — by designation it is Higashi-Chiba Medical Centre (Togane City) — so measure at the viewing which one is nearest the house you are considering.

CHAPTER 08What it costs you every year after you buy

"Public sewerage" does not appear in Isumi City's plans. This is a septic-tank town. On wastewater the city's plan for the sustainable development of depopulated areas says: "to purify household wastewater and protect the water quality of the rivers and the sea, the city's wastewater policy promotes conversion from single-treatment septic tanks or night-soil tanks to combined-treatment septic tanks… we must work to spread combined-treatment septic tanks." Assume a second-hand property comes with a single-treatment septic tank or a night-soil tank, and budget for the conversion and for the yearly maintenance, emptying and statutory inspection (the city has a grant towards installation). No primary source could be found giving the actual sewerage or wastewater-treatment coverage rates for Isumi City. Sources: Isumi City, Plan for the sustainable development of depopulated areas (PDF) / the same, grant for installing a combined-treatment septic tank / checked 12 August 2026

Water	Isumi City's water undertaking has passed from the city to the Isumi District Wide-Area Municipal Affairs Association, run jointly for the two cities and two towns of Isumi, Katsuura, Otaki and Onjuku. Tariffs are set separately for each area. For the Isumi City area, a 13 mm connection has a standing charge of ¥1,870 (0–10 m³ a month) plus ¥209 per m³ plus a meter charge of ¥77 a month. 20 m³ a month comes to ¥4,037, billed every other month
Relocation support grant	¥600,000 for a single person / ¥1,000,000 for a household of two or more / ¥1,000,000 more for each household member under 18. Apply within a year of moving in; an intention to stay 5 years or more is required. Applications close on 26 February Reiwa 9

Water

Isumi City's water undertaking has passed from the city to the Isumi District Wide-Area Municipal Affairs Association, run jointly for the two cities and two towns of Isumi, Katsuura, Otaki and Onjuku. Tariffs are set separately for each area. For the Isumi City area, a 13 mm connection has a standing charge of ¥1,870 (0–10 m³ a month) plus ¥209 per m³ plus a meter charge of ¥77 a month. 20 m³ a month comes to ¥4,037, billed every other month

Relocation support grant

¥600,000 for a single person / ¥1,000,000 for a household of two or more / ¥1,000,000 more for each household member under 18. Apply within a year of moving in; an intention to stay 5 years or more is required. Applications close on 26 February Reiwa 9

Source:Isumi District Wide-Area Municipal Affairs Association, water charges (Isumi City area)／Isumi City, relocation support payment/ Verified 2026-08-12

What is the sewerage like in Isumi?

🔴 "Public sewerage" does not appear in the city's plans. This is a septic-tank town. Assume a second-hand property comes with a single-treatment septic tank or a night-soil tank, and budget for converting to a combined-treatment tank and for the yearly maintenance, emptying and statutory inspection (the city has a grant towards installation).

CHAPTER 09What happens when you want to sell

There are 32 second-hand detached houses on SUUMO in Isumi City. Against a population of 33,717 that is one for every 1,054 people — a thin market. And while Chiba Prefecture as a whole rose sharply, residential land up 4.6% in the Reiwa 8 official survey, Isumi City was −0.6%. An eighth of the prefectural average, and falling.

City	Average, residential land	Year on year
Chiba Prefecture Average	¥130,000/m²	＋4.6%
Oamishirasato City	¥34,000/m²	＋1.6%
Mobara City	¥27,900/m²	−0.3%
Katsuura City (next to the south)	¥21,900/m²	−0.8%
Isumi City	¥16,600/m²	−0.6%

What to look at	Isumi City in practice
Depth of the market	32 on SUUMO (all of them). One for every 1,054 people. 9 are at or under ¥10,000,000 and 24 at or under ¥20,000,000. The vacant-home bank is for letting only, so nothing there can be bought (§4)
Price band	¥3,500,000 to ¥37,000,000 (with one further listing at ¥250,000,000). The district medians are ¥16,800,000 in Ohara and ¥15,990,000 in Misaki, much the same
Land prices	Residential land averages ¥16,600/m², −0.6%. Commercial land ¥19,800/m², 0.0%. All uses ¥17,300/m², −0.5%. 12.8% of the prefectural average
The pool of buyers	33,717 people, ageing rate 42.4%. The peak was 43,547 in 1995, so −25.5% (§10). The Isumi district is an area treated as depopulated (§2)
What it means for you	The Isumi Railway's trains are stopped (the derailment of October 2024; a replacement bus is running; the trains are expected back around autumn 2027 at a cost of about ¥1,450,000,000). For a property along the line, that recovery bears directly on the exit (§3)

Chiba Prefecture +4.6%, Isumi City −0.6%. That gap is where Isumi stands now. Against the prefectural average of ¥130,000/m², Isumi is ¥16,600/m², or 12.8%. That is the price of land 72 minutes from Tokyo Station by limited express (§3). But there are only 32 houses on the market. Buying means waiting for one to come up; selling means waiting for a buyer — both take time. Set beside Katsuura next door to the south (¥21,900/m², −0.8%), you can see this stretch of the Sotobo coast facing the same way together.

Sources: land prices from[Official land prices] (Reiwa 8) Table of average prices and year-on-year change by prefecture, municipality and land use(compiled from the Land Information Center and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism official land price survey, 27 April Reiwa 8) / the listings are this site's tally of all 32 SUUMO second-hand detached house listings in Isumi City, Chiba Prefecture, and the vacant-home bank is as in §4 / the population is from §10 and the Isumi Railway from the same source as §3 / checked 18 August 2026

Will the house I buy sell when I want to sell it?

With 32 on SUUMO, that is one for every 1,054 people — a thin market. 🔴 While Chiba Prefecture as a whole rose sharply in the Reiwa 8 official land price survey, residential land up 4.6%, Isumi City was −0.6%. At ¥16,600/m² it is an eighth of the prefectural average, and falling.

CHAPTER 10Who lives here, and how many

Population

33,717 people

1 August Reiwa 8, Basic Resident Register

Households

16,848 households

1 households 2.0 people

Ageing rate

42.4%

2020 Census

Against the peak

−25.5%

from 43,547 in 1995

Census	Population	Against the peak
1995 (the peak)	43,547	—
2010	40,962	−5.9%
2020	35,544	−18.4%
2025 (provisional)	32,441	−25.5%

Down 3,103 (−8.73%) in the last five years. The National Institute of Population and Social Security Research projects 30,949 in 2030, 25,677 in 2040 and 23,151 in 2045.

"First for ten years running" and "a municipality at risk of disappearing" live in the same city. In the 2026 edition of Inaka Gurashi no Hon (Takarajimasha), Isumi City was first overall in the class for cities of 30,000 to under 50,000 people and first in the Tokyo metropolitan area for the tenth year running. By the city's own account it was first in all four categories: overall, young people, families with children and older people. In that same 2024, the Population Strategy Council's report placed it in C-② — "a municipality at risk of disappearing": under the migration assumption the number of women aged 20 to 39 falls −54.6% (to 1,011 by 2050), which is the band marked "needs measures against natural decline / urgently needs measures against out-migration".

Both are true. Being chosen as a place to move to and losing population go together. The present pattern of 9 primary schools and 3 junior high schools has already been through a three-into-one merger in the Isumi area (2019), so choose a catchment on the assumption of further reorganisation. Sources: Takarajimasha press release (5 January 2026) / Population Strategy Council, Reiwa 6 report (PDF) / Chiba Prefecture, Reiwa 7 census, provisional figures / Isumi City, households and population / checked 12 August 2026

The information on this site is gathered by an AI that visits primary sources — municipalities, the Japan Meteorological Agency, national statistics — on a regular cycle, and it is updated with a source and a date of verification attached.

Share of foreign residents

2.06%national average 3.26%

Of the 34,110 people living in Isumi City, 704 are foreign residents. That is below the national average of 3.26%.
Across Japan, foreign residents make up 3.26% of the population (4,031,159 out of 123,767,642). 34 municipalities are above one in ten.

Source: calculated by this site from the municipality-level tables of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, "Population, population change and households based on the Basic Resident Register" (as of 1 January Reiwa 8, published 2026-07-29). The ministry's publication page / verified 2026-08-17

Is Isumi's population falling?

33,717 people (1 August Reiwa 8), −25.5% from the peak of 43,547 in 1995, with an ageing rate of 42.4%. A high placing in the 2026 Inaka Gurashi no Hon and the label "a municipality at risk of disappearing" live in the same city.

CHAPTER 11Community life and the year's events

If the neighbourhood here had to be said in a word, it would be a town of festivals. The Ohara Hadaka Matsuri is a festival in which 18 shrines from the three districts of Ohara, Tokai and Naminohana bring out their mikoshi, and it has run since the Edo period. Whether you join it is what living in the Ohara district means.

The city's own page puts it like this: "when the autumn wind starts to blow, the minds of the people of Ohara fill up with the naked festival." And of the Edo period it quotes an old resident: "they would pawn anything to get ready for the festival." This is not a tourist event but a community one. On the first day, at shiofumi, more than a dozen mikoshi go into the sea together at Ohara beach, and on the second day, at owakare-shiki, about a kilometre of the shopping street fills with people and mikoshi.

Where you live	What community life involves
Ohara	The heart of the naked festival. Each of the 18 shrines has its own parishioners' organisation. The main city office and the shopping street are in this district too
Misaki	The coast at Taito and Chojamachi. The district whose population has fallen the least of the three (−1.7% against 1990), and correspondingly the one where most newcomers arrive
Isumi	The inland villages. Notified on 1 April 2022 as an area treated as depopulated. Fewer households also means the turn to take an office comes round sooner.
In common	An ageing rate of 42.4% (§10). In the 2019 Boso Peninsula typhoon the power cut lasted longer than the damage to houses (§5) — how you are connected to your neighbours during a power cut really tells here

What comes round every year

The Ohara Hadaka Matsuri runs over two days around 23 September, the autumn equinox. It was once 13–15 August; the calendar reform moved it to 23–25 September from Meiji 6, and from Taisho 2 it has been the two days of 23 and 24 September. After the mikoshi and their bearers appeared in the opening attraction of the 1973 Chiba National Sports Festival, the name "Ohara Hadaka Matsuri" took hold. If you are going to move here, come and watch these two days in September first.

Source:Isumi City, the Ohara Hadaka Matsuri(city fisheries, commerce and tourism division, tourism and products section / updated 20 August 2025) / the population and ageing rate are from §10, the typhoon from §5 and the depopulation notice from the same source as §1 / checked 18 August 2026

Is community life demanding in Isumi?

In a word, a town of festivals. The Ohara Hadaka Matsuri, running since the Edo period, brings out the mikoshi of 18 shrines from three districts, and whether you join it is what living in the Ohara district means. It is a community event, not a tourist one.

CHAPTER 12Things nearby that move land prices

What tells on land in Isumi is where it sits within Chiba Prefecture, the Isumi Railway, and being close to the sea.

(1) Within Chiba Prefecture, only the Sotobo coast faces the other way

Residential land in Chiba Prefecture rose 4.6%. That is a high rate even nationally, pulled by the north-west — Narita, Makuhari, Kashiwa. On the Sotobo coast, meanwhile, it is Isumi −0.6%, Katsuura −0.8%, Mobara −0.3% (§9). Within one prefecture, the rising side and the falling side are clearly apart. Isumi City's ¥16,600/m² is 12.8% of the prefectural average — and that gap is exactly why it can be bought cheaply.

(2) The Isumi Railway's trains are stopped

The Isumi Line (Ohara to Kazusa-Nakano, 26.8 km and 14 stations; six in the city — Ohara, Nishi-Ohara, Kazusa-Higashi, Nittano, Kuniyoshi and Kazusa-Nakagawa) is suspended over the whole line after the derailment of 4 October 2024, and is running by replacement bus. The trains are expected back around autumn 2027 (Reiwa 9) at a cost put at about ¥1,450,000,000, and support has been sought from the prefecture and the municipalities concerned (§3).

If you buy along the line, that recovery bears directly on the exit. If it comes back the station comes back; if not, it stays a bus. That only 2 houses are on the market in the inland Isumi district (§2) is not unrelated to this.

(3) Being close to the sea — both the price and the risk

The median elevation of the listings is 6 m in Misaki, 22 m in Ohara and 32 m in Isumi (§2). And the tsunami projection is T.P. 15.8 m, with effects starting in under a minute (§5). The cheapest district, and the one losing fewest people, is also the lowest — that is the shape of Isumi.

There is also this: 1,549 landslide warning zones (1,412 of them with a special warning notice), among the most in the prefecture, for a "seaside town" (§5). Sea and hills being close together means both risks sit inside the same city.

(4) The school-meal rice becoming 100% organic

Isumi City switched the rice in its school meals from 11% (4 t) in fiscal 2015 to 100% (42 t) in fiscal 2018 (§7). It is known across Japan, and it is one of the reasons families with children choose this city. It does not show in the land price, but it is the kind of policy that changes who the buyers are.

Sources: land prices from[Official land prices] (Reiwa 8) Table of average prices and year-on-year change by prefecture, municipality and land use(compiled from the Land Information Center and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism official land price survey, 27 April Reiwa 8) / the Isumi Railway is from §3, the tsunami and landslides from §5, the organic school meals from §7 and the elevations from §2 / checked 18 August 2026

What decides land prices in Isumi?

Within one prefecture, only the Sotobo coast faces the other way. While Chiba as a whole rose 4.6%, Isumi was −0.6%, Katsuura −0.8% and Mobara −0.3%. Isumi City's ¥16,600/m² is 12.8% of the prefectural average, and that gap is exactly why it can be bought cheaply.

CHAPTER 13What this place makes

What a place earns its living from shows up both at your dinner table and in your work once you live there. The amount raised through the hometown tax scheme is a rough measure of how many products a place has that people all over Japan choose.

¥2,082,610,000

Hometown tax receipts for fiscal Reiwa 7 (144,671 donations).
139th of the 1,788 municipalities in Japan, and 4th within Chiba Prefecture

We have not yet been able to describe this place's local specialities

I (the AI) searched Isumi City's official site and the tourism and product association sites the municipality points to, but could not find an officially published list of local specialities (checked 20 August 2026).
This site is built by checking each source one at a time, so that the AI does not present something that is not so. Nothing is written here because no sourced information could be found. It does not mean the place has no specialities; please bear with us.

🔴 To municipalities and local organisations
If you would like this filled in,please tell us the official page . We will put it here with a source and the date it was checked.

For municipalities and local organisations (get in touch here) →

You can support a town without living there

Even if a move is still some way off, you can be involved from today through the hometown tax scheme. Your donation goes straight to the municipality, and you choose what it is spent on. A way to give something back to a place you got to know here.

Support Isumi City through the hometown tax scheme →

Source:Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, "Survey on the state of the hometown tax scheme (conducted FY Reiwa 8)", the table of amounts and numbers received (provisional FY Reiwa 7 settlement), tallied by this site. The rank is out of all 1,788 municipalities in that table / verified 2026-08-14

What does Isumi earn its living from?

Hometown tax receipts came to ¥2,082,610,000 in fiscal Reiwa 7 (144,671 donations), 139th of the 1,788 municipalities in Japan and 4th within Chiba Prefecture.

CHAPTER 14A message from Isumi City

How the receiving side sees it. Isumi City has a site of its own, the Isumi Living Information Site, built on three pillars: the vacant-home bank, interviews with people who have moved here, and starting a business. The counter is the planning and policy division (0470-62-1332).

What the city does	Detail
The city's pitch	"Tokyo Station is about 70 minutes from JR Ohara Station by limited express. You can sit comfortably every morning on the way to work." — the fully reserved character of the Wakashio (§3) written up as a strength.
🔴 The vacant-home bank is for letting only	The site's categories are "I want to rent a vacant house" and "I want to let my vacant house". Nothing comes up to buy (§4). To buy, the way in is the second-hand market on SUUMO and the like.
Try living here	Applications are open for the Reiwa 8 Isumi City try-living scheme (announced 7 May 2026)
Support for starting a business	The site has a pillar for "starting a business", with introductions to founders and the support available. The interviews with people who have moved here include former community-revitalisation volunteers and people who have turned to farming
List of estate agents	The city publishes a list of estate agents in the city. It fills the gap left by a vacant-home bank that only handles lettings
Where to talk to them	The city takes part in events such as the Furusato Kaiki Fair (due 12 September 2026), the Chiba relocation consultation day and "Talk to people who moved here! The Isumi area of Chiba Prefecture"
Money	The grant towards buying a home (reduced from July 2026, §4), and the relocation support payment (¥1,000,000 per household, ¥600,000 for a single person)

The Isumi Living Information Site →

This city is built around renting first and buying later. A vacant-home bank for letting only, a try-living scheme, and a list of estate agents published by the city — it is designed not to have you buy straight away. Where only 32 houses are on the market (§9), that makes sense. Rent first, watch the naked festival in September once (§11), then decide — as a way into Isumi, I think that is the surest.

Source:The Isumi Living Information Site(Isumi City Hall, planning and policy division) (vacant-home bank / try-living / starting a business / list of estate agents / news and events) / the grants are from the same sources as §4 / checked 18 August 2026

Does Isumi welcome people moving in? Is there a vacant-home bank?

There is an "Isumi Living Information Site", and the counter is the planning and policy division (0470-62-1332). 🔴 The vacant-home bank is for letting only, with categories only for "I want to rent" and "I want to let", and nothing comes up to buy. To buy, the way in is the second-hand market on SUUMO and the like.

CHAPTER 15A year in Isumi

The temperatures, and what happens in daily life. A year in Isumi is a cool summer and a warm winter — the Sotobo climate, facing the Pacific. There is no Japan Meteorological Agency station inside Isumi City, so the values are those for Katsuura (12 m above sea level) next door to the south (§6). The August daily high of 29.0°C is 2.3°C below Tokyo, and the January daily low of 2.9°C is 1.7°C above it.

Month	Isumi that month
month 1	A daily low of 2.9°C, warmer than Tokyo's 1.2°C. A winter with hardly any worry about snow
month 2	The peak of the cold. Even so, a different world from the inland places people move to
month 3	The spring sea. The rape blossom season along the Isumi Railway — though the trains are stopped and it is the replacement bus for now (§3)
month 4	The easiest stretch of the year begins
month 5	Rice planting. 100% of the rice in this city's school meals is organic (§7) — and those paddies start moving in this season
month 6	The rainy season. There are days with sea fog
month 7	The sea season. Ohara beach is also the sea the mikoshi go into at the naked festival in September
month 8	A daily high of 29.0°C, 2.3°C below Tokyo. Summer on the Sotobo coast is cooler than Tokyo — one of Isumi's greatest strengths
month 9	🔴 Two days around the 23rd, the Ohara Hadaka Matsuri. The "shiofumi", when the mikoshi of 18 shrines go into the sea, and the "owakare-shiki", which fills a kilometre of the shopping street (§11). It is also the typhoon month — in the 2019 Boso Peninsula typhoon the power cut lasted longer than the damage to houses (§5)
month 10	Autumn. The month to check the typhoon projections for the year ahead
month 11	Calm, clear weather holds. One of the easiest times of the year
month 12	Even in winter the daily low rarely goes below zero. Heating costs are nothing like those of the inland places people move to

The most important date in Isumi is 23 September. Summer 2.3°C cooler than Tokyo, winter 1.7°C warmer — on climate alone, the Sotobo coast is a very comfortable place to live. But what decides this city is not the climate; it is whether you join the naked festival. Eighteen shrines from the three districts of Ohara, Tokai and Naminohana. A festival that has run since the Edo period, of which it was said that "they would pawn anything to get ready for it". Come once for those two days in September, and see whether you can picture yourself inside that circle.

Sources: the temperatures are as in §6 (Japan Meteorological Agency normals for Katsuura, 1991–2020; there is no station inside Isumi City) / the festival is fromIsumi City, the Ohara Hadaka Matsuri / the organic school meals are from §7, the typhoon from §5 and the Isumi Railway from the same source as §3 / checked 18 August 2026

What is a year in Isumi like?

The January daily low of 2.9°C is warmer than Tokyo's 1.2°C, and it is a winter with hardly any worry about snow. March is the rape blossom season along the Isumi Railway, though the trains are stopped and it is the replacement bus for now.

CHAPTER 16The people who run this city

When you are thinking of moving, who is running this city and where they are taking it is, I think, something the people about to live there want to know even more than those already living there. This chapter sets out, with sources, only what Isumi City publishes itself. 🔴 As of 22 August 2026, following the official site, I (the AI) found 4 of the 6 below.

What is published	Published	What you can read
About the mayor	The mayor's office	Name, career, greeting
Policy address	Could not find one	What they say they will do this year
List of council members	List of council members	Who the members are, and their groupings
Council broadcasts and recordings	City council internet broadcast	Whether you can watch the council in session
Searchable minutes	Searching and reading the minutes	Whether you can search past debates by wording
Master plan	Could not find one	How many years ahead this town has decided

🔴 I (an AI) could not find the name of the mayor of Isumi City96 pages of Isumi City's official site were followed, butcould not take the name from anywhere I could say with certainty was the page introducing the current mayor。That does not mean there is none, or that it is not published.Guessing at a name would be the greater discourtesy, so nothing is recorded. 🔴 To municipalities and local organisations — tell us the URL of the introduction page and we will put it here with a source and the date it was checked.Get in touch here →

How much of the council can you see?A list of members, live or recorded broadcasts of full sessions, and searchable minutes — where these three are published, you can read a town's debates for yourself before you ever move there.
🔴 The names, photographs and social media of individual council members are not carried on this site. We point you to where you can read them.
Once you have moved, when your own turn to decide comes round is something those three will tell you.

🔴 We could not find a master planFollowing the official site, we could not find a page for a master plan or basic vision (checked 2026-08-22).That does not mean there is none.🔴 To municipalities and local organisations — tell us the URL and we will put it here.Get in touch here →

🔴 What I will not do in this chapter1. I will not guess gender or age from a name. Only what is published appears here. 2. I will not write that anything is good or bad. Only what is being put forward, and where it comes from. 3. I will not compare election candidates.
🔴 And mayors change. This site always records the date it checked (2026-08-22), and reopens the original page each time to confirm by machine that the name is still there. If you notice something has nonetheless gone out of date, please let us know.

Source: allofficial site (Isumi City ), followed on 2026-08-22. What this site counted wasonly whether something is published or not ; the content has not been judged / verified 2026-08-22

Who runs Isumi City now?

🔴 I (the AI) could not find the name of the mayor of Isumi City on the official site (checked 22 August 2026). Guessing seemed worse than leaving it out, so it is not written here. What this site looks for is the 6 things: an introduction to the head of the authority, the policy statement, the list of council members, the broadcasting of council meetings, a search for the minutes, and the comprehensive plan. 🔴 No judgement of good or bad is made here. Only whether something is published or not.

CHAPTER 17Where to go on a day off

What does not show up in the numbers of a house search, yet bears directly on how satisfied you are once you live somewhere, is days off. This chapter counts, on the same measure for every area, the places you can go on a day off around Isumi (measured at Katsuura) and the places family and friends can stay when they visit. This is a town with Minami Boso Quasi-National Park. The area currently has 2 RV parks. 🔴 All the counts are the numbers registered in the map data (OpenStreetMap) — in reality there may be more.

What	Number counted, and names
⛰ National and quasi-national parks	Minami Boso Quasi-National Park
♨ Hot springs and day baths	Not found in the map data
🏯 Castles and castle sites	Not found in the map data
🎡 Amusement parks, zoos and aquariums	Not found in the map data
🖼 Museums, galleries and memorial halls	the Isumi City Local History Museum, the Mahjong Museum and the Chiba Prefecture Isumi Environment and Culture Village Centre (3)
⛩ Shrines and temples	6 shrines and 2 temples. Those with a Wikipedia article are Bando no. 32 Otowasan Kiyomizu-dera and Hachiman Shrine
🚗 Roadside stations	Not found in the map data
🐕 Dog runs	Not found in the map data
🛣 Expressway service and parking areas	No expressway service or parking area was found in this area

Somewhere to stay — for family and friends, and for your own travels

What	Number counted
🏨 Hotels and ryokan	Not found in the map data
🏠 Guesthouses and hostels	Not found in the map data
⛺ Campsites and auto-campsites	the Ohara Kamibuse auto-camping ground
🏕 Glamping	Not found among the campsite or hotel names
🚐 RV parks (overnight in your vehicle)	RV Park ISUMI Glamping Resort & Spa SOLAS, RV Park NANSO CAMP

This table is the result of me (an AI) putting the same question to the map data for every area (areas are retrieved in batches, so the verification date on some pages is a day apart). Facilities not registered on the map are not counted. "Not found" does not mean "there are none" — nor that the town is any the lesser for it.

Sources: the counts and names of facilities fromOpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL) / RV parks fromJapan RV Association, list of certified "Kuruma-tabi" RV parks / roadside stations fromMinistry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, list of "michi-no-eki" roadside stations / national parks judged from the boundary data of the Ministry of the Environment Biodiversity Center overlaid on National Land Numerical Information (administrative boundaries); for quasi-national parks the municipalities concerned were confirmed at the link behind the park name / verified 2026-08-20

Are there places to go on a day off, and places to stay?

This is a town with Minami Boso Quasi-National Park. Counting from the map data (OpenStreetMap) and the lists of the RV Association and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, there are 2 RV parks and 1 camping ground. Facilities not on the map are not counted, so in reality there may be more (details in §17).

What I (an AI) was able to find on this town's official site

This site reads the official sites of every area it covers on the same 30 items, out of 100, to measure how quickly someone thinking of moving can reach the information they need. The site measured was that of Isumi City, and the total was 53.7 points (measured 20 August 2026).

"Not found" does not mean "there is none." It means I followed the official site and could not find it. Tell us the published page and the next measurement will reflect it.

Area	Score	What was found
Getting started with a move	10 / 20	Has a relocation and settlement page, has a dedicated relocation site, has an enquiry desk (department, telephone, opening hours), and 1 more
Housing	9 / 15	There is an akiya bank; listings carry photographs, price, year built and floor area; completed deals are organised
The money side of living here	9 / 15	Water and sewerage charges are readable from a rate table; child-raising support is specific about amounts and scope; there are explanations of national health insurance tax and fixed asset tax
Disaster information	11.7 / 20	Hazard maps are published by district; flood, landslide and earthquake are all covered; they are machine-readable (a map system or text PDF); and 1 more
Industry and local produce	1 / 10	Hometown tax results are published year by year
Transport	7 / 10	There is a community bus timetable; fares are stated
Can an AI read it?	6 / 10	Every page shows an update date / there is a sitemap.xml / statistics are published as Excel or CSV

See all 30 items and the pages used to judge them

3 / 3　There is a relocation and settlement page
moving　Go and see → 3 / 3　There is a dedicated relocation site
Isumi City, Chiba Prefecture: relocation, settlement and country living | the Isumi Living Information Site　Go and see → 3 / 3　A contact point (department, telephone, opening hours)
3 of department, telephone and opening hours were stated　Go and see → 1 / 5　Support schemes state amounts and conditions
A guide to the scheme only　Go and see → 0 / 3　There is trial housing or a trial-stay scheme
Not found 0 / 3　Vacancies in trial housing are published
Not found 4 / 4　There is an akiya bank
There is a municipal akiya bank 1 / 4　Listings carry photographs, price, year built and floor area
0 of 6 (0%) have all 4 items 4 / 4　Completed deals are organised
No completed deals appear in the list 0 / 3　The conditions of use are stated
Not found 1 / 5　Water and sewerage charges are readable from a rate table
There is a water and sewerage page　Go and see → 5 / 5　Child-raising support is specific about amounts and scope
The scope of free and subsidised care is stated down to the age　Go and see → 3 / 3　There are explanations of national health insurance tax and fixed asset tax
Both the rates and the amounts are stated　Go and see → 0 / 2　Tie-ups with banks for mortgages and the like
Not found 5 / 5　Hazard maps are published by district
12 documents by area　Go and see → 1.7 / 5　Flood, landslide and earthquake are all covered
Earthquake　Go and see → 0 / 3　The year the assumptions were last reviewed is stated
Not found　Go and see → 2 / 4　Is it machine-readable (a map system or a text PDF)?
It appears to be a scanned-image PDF　Go and see → 3 / 3　Disasters are announced through more than one channel
Disaster email / disaster app / social media / municipal loudspeakers / TV and radio　Go and see → 0 / 5　A list of local speciality products is on the official site
Not found 1 / 3　Hometown tax results are published year by year
Not found　Go and see → 0 / 2　There are support schemes for businesses and industry
Not found 4 / 4　There is a community bus timetable
　Go and see → 3 / 3　Fares are stated
　Go and see → 0 / 3　The date of the last revision is given
Not found　Go and see → 3 / 3　Every page carries an updated date
19 of the 20 pages read　Go and see → 2 / 2　There is a sitemap.xml
　Go and see → 0 / 2　Site search runs on the server side
We could not find a search form　Go and see → 1 / 2　Statistics are published as Excel or CSV
There is a statistics page　Go and see → 0 / 1　Open data is published
Not found

Compare with other towns → 　For municipalities and local organisations (get in touch here) →

Measurement by this site. The URL of each official site was taken from the municipal information published by Furusato Choice. The score is a score for publishing information, not a score for how good the place is to live / verified 2026-08-20

Compare with other areas

Every page has the same 17 chapters in the same order. Move between them and you can compare the same line.

Areas in the Kanto region

Kisarazu (21 min to Haneda by bus, at the foot of the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line)Kisarazu City, Chibalistings189 listings / ¥3,980,000–Tateyama (1 hour 54 minutes to Tokyo by express coach; the sea and flowers of southern Boso)Tateyama City, Chiba Prefecturelistings32 listings / ¥3,980,000–Miura (35°C once every three years — the tip of the Miura Peninsula)Miura City, Kanagawa Prefecturelistings59 listings / ¥2,980,000–Maebashi (the southern foot of Mt. Akagi)Maebashi City, Gunmalistings576 listings / ¥2,500,000–

Places you could look at for a similar price

Itoshima (43 min to Hakata)Itoshima City, Fukuokalistings189 listings / ¥3,500,000–Nishinomiya (17 min to Osaka, 15 min to Sannomiya; a city of schools and homes)Nishinomiya City, Hyogolistings677 listings / ¥3,300,000–Kawachinagano (Oku-Kawachi; 40 min to Namba)Kawachinagano City, Osakalistings155 listings / ¥3,800,000–Kisarazu (21 min to Haneda by bus, at the foot of the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line)Kisarazu City, Chibalistings189 listings / ¥3,980,000–

Compare areas by budget and region →

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