My son bought his school swim shorts at his school for 1900 yen ($18.63 €13.48). The students in the school have to wear the same shorts. So my son had to buy them.
Swimming lessons are mandatory in most of elementary schools and high schools in Japan.
The following shows the installation rates of school pools in elementary schools in Japan (in 2006).
| Prefecture | Installation rate (%) |
| Hokkaido | 36.6 |
| Aomori | 54.5 |
| Iwate | 83.7 |
| Miyagi | 95.7 |
| Akita | 93.4 |
| Yamagata | 83.2 |
| Fukushima | 92.4 |
| Ibaraki | 95.5 |
| Tochigi | 93.8 |
| Gumma | 94.8 |
| Saitama | 99.3 |
| Chiba | 96.5 |
| Tokyo | 98.9 |
| Kanagawa | 92.8 |
| Niigata | 93.2 |
| Toyama | 86.2 |
| Ishikawa | 89.0 |
| Fukui | 84.0 |
| Yamanashi | 81.0 |
| Nagano | 97.5 |
| Gifu | 94.6 |
| Shizuoka | 94.6 |
| Aichi | 94.6 |
| Mie | 86.5 |
| Shiga | 93.2 |
| Kyoto | 93.4 |
| Osaka | 92.3 |
| Hyogo | 94.0 |
| Nara | 95.1 |
| Wakayama | 75.0 |
| Tottori | 87.5 |
| Shimane | 71.0 |
| Okayama | 93.8 |
| Hiroshima | 84.3 |
| Yamaguchi | 81.5 |
| Tokushima | 73.8 |
| Kagawa | 93.5 |
| Ehime | 87.9 |
| Kochi | 75.6 |
| Fukuoka | 94.2 |
| Saga | 88.1 |
| Nagasaki | 68.2 |
| Kumamoto | 92.8 |
| Oita | 88.1 |
| Miyazaki | 92.4 |
| Kagoshima | 81.9 |
| Okinawa | 67.9 |
This is a kind of old data. But recently the government has not researched the installation rate of school pool.
Hokkaido and Aomori have lower rates. I guess it is too cold to hold a swimming lesson in those northern areas.
Source is Statistics Bureau.
www.e-stat.go.jp/SG1/estat/Xlsdl.do?sinfid=000002159011
www.stat.go.jp/data/ssds/5-18.htm
