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According to the advocacy group Buraku Liberation League, a Burakumin is “a person who lives, or whose family used to live, in one of the communities that was formed and discriminated against during the pre-modern-era caste system as a result of profession and place of residence.” There are still approximately 1.24 million Burakumin, or 1 percent of Japan’s population, most of which live in some 4,500 government-recognized Burakumin villages (as of 2014). Most are in western Japan, especially Fukuoka, Ehime, Hyogo and Osaka prefectures where their feudal-era industries where once centered.
