Where Japanese is spoken worldwide

Brazil has the largest population of Japanese outside of Japan, but it is less than 1%.see CIA Factbook: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/

Japanese is an official language in Japan and Palau Islands on its southern island Angaur (a.k.a. Monkey Island.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_official_languages#J

There are major Japanese speaking populations in places such as Australia, the U.S. (especially Hawaii and California), Taiwan, the Philippines, Peru, and Argentina. (this list is not exhaustive.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_language

--------Judging from the languages offered at major tourist locations, Japanese can be a useful 2nd or 3rd language, as well. And since there are so many expatriot Japanese living, working or studying overseas, one can find Japanese in many other places not listed, as well. Then there are the increasing numbers of foreign students and visiting researchers at Japanese universities who may reach a high level of proficience. When they return to their home countries they form still another population of Japanese speakers.
Note also the size of the publishing, broadcast, Web presence, too. And based on population alone, Japanese is among the top 10 languages.

more panorama views - Fukui-ken; Hokkaido

There are about 130 wide views online. Please invite students and colleagues to browse these wide views from Fukui-ken and from Hokkaido.
http://picasaweb.google.com/big1file/Pano2009jp