Okinawa has no 7-11 Konbini stores

Convenience stores, or konbini as they are known here, are everywhere in Japan. I read on Statistics Japan website that there are more konbinies per capita in Hokkaido than any other prefecture in Japan!  Hokkaido has just under 3,000 convenience stores, or about 54 for every 100,000 people. Okinawa is near the bottom of the list with about 37 and a third per 100,000.  Tokyo prefecture has 48 and a quarter stores per 100,000 people.  Family Mart, Lawson’s and 7-11 seem to be the most common in all of Japan.  Sieco-Mart, my personal favorite, is based in Hokkaido and has about 1000 stores. 

Why are there so many konbinies in Japan? You can buy snacks and drinks as well as hot meals; you can pay your bills and print pictures, buy magazines and event tickets, the list goes on and on. People who leave Japan often say konbinies are one thing they miss. Japan Visitor reports that on average people in Japan visit convenience stores 2-3 times a week, with 7% of the population visiting daily.

RocketNews24 recently posted that there are only three (of 47) prefectures that don’t have 7-11 stores.  One of them is Okinawa.  I told Ted about this and we both remembered shopping at Family Marts and Lawson’s while in Okinawa, but not 7-11’s.  There are about 17,500 7-11 stores in all of Japan, but not one in Okinawa.