Which prefecture has the fewest train lines?

[bluejeans]

I asked on the Japan subreddit but everyone named Okinawa, not realizing I meant no lines, and not fewest.

[kvp]

I think you really meant fewest but at least one.

 

There are a number of factors though, fewest can be counted by number, length, per capita, etc.

 

Anyway i think east and north Hokkaido would win this and after the newest closures there won't be a connected rail system at all, just some suburban patches around bigger cities, a lone shinkansen line and maybe the southern freight route survives.

 

On the positive side, ferry traffic (cars, buses and trucks) to Hokkaido is up as there are very few alternatives since local passenger rail traffic was discontinued through the seikan tunnel and the rail freight capacity had to be throttled down.

[Kiha66]

As far as I can tell, every prefecture in the home islands has more than one rail line.  Okinawa, with its single monorail, would be prefecture with the absolute fewest with one remaining (monorail) line and three defunct rail lines.  Hokkaido would have the fewest per area most likely, but as its a very large prefecture it still has a fair number of lines.  My guess for the prefecture with the fewest lines in the home islands would be Miyazaki with five, but there may be somewhere with fewer.

Edited July 21, 2018 by Kiha66

[katoftw]

amount of track per kilometer or mile square land, I'd say Hokkaido

 

per kilometer or mile length of total tracks, I'd say Miyazaki, Ehime, Gifu

 

every prefecture has a train line, if you include monorail has trains.

Edited July 21, 2018 by katoftw

[railsquid]

Stats from 2013, with absolute lengths, and km/100km2 and km/10,000 of population:
 

https://uub.jp/pdr/t/k.html

 

Ishikawa Pref. has the least by kilometre route miles, Hokkaido the most.

[Kiha66]

Thanks squid, very informative graph and chart.  I didnt realize Nagasaki had almost as much km of private lines as it does JR, although with the transfer of the matsuuren I suppose it shouldn't have been that surprising.