Japan experienced a decade-long economic overheat called a “bubble economy”, which suddenly ended in December 1991. It left many kinds of long-lasting traces, if not scars, on its land as well as on its economy. It was a serious, but academically interesting, phenomenon from not only economic but also land-use point of view, The analyses of the prefectural reports of the Survey of Land-use Trend, which cover the time range of 1980 onward, have revealed how the government's policy and local authorities' intentions affected land use, how different types of land use responded to the bubble economy, and what were left on the land behind the bubble economy. The study shows some clear regularities of people's actions towards the land under the bubble economy, which might be useful when identifying similar situations in other countries, especially in developing countries in Asia, and in mitigating or avoiding disastrous consequences of economic overheat on the land and the environment.