On December 4, 2020, Apple released “Look Around” for the Fukuoka, Hiroshima, & Takamatsu areas in Japan:

This brings the total number of Look Around areas to twenty-one...

...and Japan’s total to six:

With this latest release, Look Around now covers 3.7% of Japan’s land area and 40.7% of Japan’s population...

...and Look Around now covers five of Japan’s ten largest metropolitan areas:

In total, Look Around now covers more than 117 million people in parts of four countries...

This latest Look Around release is Apple’s smallest in terms of land area:

And it’s Apple’s second smallest in terms of population:

It arrives 58 days after Apple’s last Look Around release (Release #9: Phoenix):

On average, Apple has been releasing new Look Around areas every 53 days.

It wasn’t particularly surprising to see Apple expand its Look Around coverage in Japan. After all, Japan is where Apple has the highest market share in mobile devices:

But it was very surprising to see Takamatsu among the first twenty-one Look Around areas released by Apple. Takamatsu is not particularly well known outside of Japan—and even within Japan, there are fifty other cities with larger populations.

Why not release Sapporo, Sendai, or even nearby (and much larger) Okayama first?