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Since Japan has a large population and very little land, the Japanese government stresses economical and intensive land use. As a result, they are establishing a series of plans on land use, urban infrastructure, and transportation system, to realize urban reconstruction and intensive land use. For example, to control the unlimited expansion of city and the decline of city center, they use land intensively in the city center and along public transport routes to build “neo-compact cities,” they build metropolitan areas with polycentric structures, and they make the best use of space available both above and below ground to build “vertical cities.” Through these ways, Japan has become one of the densest countries in the world. This paper summarizes Japan’s actions on land use, by literature search and by collecting official information from Japanese government websites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]