Average commercial land prices in Japan's three largest metropolitan regions climbed 2.3 percent during the year to July 1, accelerating from a 1.7 percent rise a year earlier, as stock market advances and an increase in foreign visitors boosted real estate demand, the government said Wednesday.

Among locations showing a particularly strong increase, a commercial lot on the eastern side of the Nagoya railway station posted a 45.7 percent jump in price amid redevelopment projects and a plan to open in a magnetically levitated train line between Tokyo and Nagoya in 2027.

The average residential land price increase in the Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka metropolitan regions slowed to 0.4 percent from 0.5 percent in the previous survey.

On a nationwide basis, residential land prices fell an average 1.0 percent for the 24th straight year and commercial land prices slipped 0.5 percent for the eighth straight year. But their pace of decline was slower compared to the previous year.

Land prices rose at more than 20 percent of the residential locations surveyed and at nearly 30 percent of the commercial locations. Both percentages were greater than those in the last survey.