Japan's population, including non-Japanese residents, as of Oct. 1 last year dropped by 595,000, or 0.48 pct, from a year before to 124,352,000, down for the 13th successive year, the internal affairs ministry said Friday.

The number of people aged 75 or over exceeded 20 million for the first time ever, showing that the aging of the country's population has advanced further.

The natural population decrease, or the number of deaths minus that of births, stood at 837,000, the largest drop since comparable data became available in 1950. The country logged a natural population fall for the 17th year in a row.

The social population increase, or the number of people entering Japan minus that of those leaving the country, came to 242,000, up for the second consecutive year. The social population growth among foreigners stood at 240,000.

By age group, the number of people aged 75 or older totaled 20,078,000, accounting for 16.1 pct of the total. The proportion of people aged 65 or over constituted a record 29.1 pct of the country's population