Matsuya Sendai Ichibancho Store's Latitude Drifts South Again by 0.0000010°, Cumulative Shift Reaches About 1.4m

Matsuya Sendai Ichibancho store (2260) has had its latitude shift slightly south once again. On Matsuya’s official website, the store’s latitude decreased by 0.0000010 degrees, from 38.2621311 to 38.2621301, while the longitude of 140.8711560 remained unchanged. On the map, this works out to a shift of about 11cm due south. The store itself hasn’t actually relocated — the address, store name, and operating status all remain the same.

A Slow, Steady Southward Drift — Cumulative Shift Reaches About 1.4m

Starting from 38.2621431 in late April, the store’s latitude has continued to decrease in the same direction, in increments of 0.0000010 degrees, ever since. This latest reading of 38.2621301 marks the 13th such change, bringing the total difference from the starting point to 0.0000130 degrees — a shift of about 1.4m to the south. The longitude has never moved even once; the direction of change has always been due south. Since a decrease in latitude means a shift southward, the point on the map has drifted downward little by little, but steadily.

Each individual shift is about 11cm — roughly the distance of a person taking a half-step. Accumulating every one to two weeks, the cumulative total, which stood at about 55cm as of late June, has grown to about 1.4m in a little over a month. Looking purely at the numbers, it’s as though the store’s signage hasn’t moved at all while its coordinates have been slowly walking on their own.

The Same Movement Is Happening at About 10 Stores Nationwide

This pattern — latitude alone ticking down by 0.0000010 degrees at a time, always in the same direction — isn’t unique to the Sendai Ichibancho store. Around the same period, stores such as Matsuya Miyakojima Tomobuchicho in Osaka and Matsuya No. 8 Nagahama have also seen the same step size and direction of change, with the pattern now affecting about 10 stores nationwide. Among them, Miyakojima Tomobuchicho and No. 8 Nagahama have seen the most changes, with Sendai Ichibancho close behind. All of them began showing the same movement in quick succession from late April onward.

If this were happening at just one store, it might look like a minor surveying error. But with multiple stores moving in lockstep — the same step size, the same direction — it’s hard to attribute to random variation, and instead reads as a structural pattern.

Two Matsuya Stores in Ichibancho, One Co-located with Matsunoya

Amid all the talk of coordinates, it’s worth noting the store’s actual location too. Matsuya Sendai Ichibancho store is located at 1F Keiwa Building, 3-10-17 Ichibancho, Aoba-ku, Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture, and is co-located with a Matsunoya. In the same Ichibancho area, just a different chome, at 2-7-7 Ichibancho, there’s also Matsuya Sendai Minamimachidori store — putting two Matsuya locations within very close reach of each other.

There are 12 Matsuya stores within Sendai City, 5 of which are co-located with Matsunoya. Across Miyagi Prefecture as a whole there are 16 stores, placing it roughly in the middle among Japan’s 47 prefectures. Even as its coordinates keep quietly drifting south, the physical store remains firmly planted on its corner of Ichibancho.