Stadiums in Japan: J.League Venues
This section of the Rising Sun News provides information on the major stadiums used by J.League teams. As the world discovered at the 2002 World Cup, Japan has some of the most architecturally beautiful stadiums in the world. Unfortunately, a large number of the stadiums that were used at the World Cup were multi-purpose facilities, which may have larger capacities, but which put fans a greater distance from the pitch and thus detract from the "atmosphere". In the past, multipurpose stadiums have been the norm in Japan because stadiums are all operated privately (rather than owned by a football team), and the more sports they can accomodate, the easier it is to make ends meet. Nevertheless, in recent years Japan has also built a large number of very nice football-only facilities. Because FIFA decided to split the hosting of World Cup 2002 between Japan and Korea, some of the coziest and most attractive venues in Japan -- such as Matsumoto Stadium in Nagano prefecture and Toyota Stadium, near Nagoya -- were never used for a World Cup match.
Fortunately, these beautiful facilities have not gone to waste; most are now home to J.League teams. Furthermore, the surge in stadium development did not end with the World Cup. Though no new stadiums have been built or planned on the same scale as the ones build prior to 2002, a number of smaller facilities are popping up all over the country, as regional cities create venues for their local teams, and set their sights on J.League membership. We have tried to provide as complete a list of stadiums as possible, though most of the stadiums featured in this section are facilities that host J.League or JFL matches, at least on occasion.
At present, there are 31 J.League teams and another 18 teams in the JFL. The distribution of these teams is very quite broad. Naturally, big urban centers such as Tokyo, Osaka and Yokohama are heavily represented, but of Japan's 47 prefectures, 29 have at least one J.League or JFL team.
The map below shows the stadiums used as official "home" stadiums by all J1 and J2 clubs, as well as some of the the main stadiums used by JFL teams. We have also included stadiums that are used as "alternate" locations for J.League matches (since clubs do not own their own stadiums, they sometimes will play a "home" match somewhere other than their main "home" stadium). Detailed information on each of the venues can be accessed by clicking on the name of the stadium.
