During the last ten decades the statistical system in Japan has been developed with the government statistics. This period can be divided into three parts; from 1870 to 1900, from 1900 to 1945 and from 1946 to 1980's. The developments of offiicial statistics in each part are reviewed in the first half of this paper. We now are in the fourth part and face to two opposite subjectse in the statistical system. One is the increasing needs for statistical data in various fields, the other is that it is not easy to enlarge further government statistical surveys to meet those needs since the environment of the statistical surveys has been set a limit. To resolve the above contradictory problems we have to utilize the available data sources in every directions. Not only do we depend on government statistical surveys but also non-governmental statistics. The large amount of administrative records stored by central and local government are also promising resources from which useful statistical data can be made.
