The shaking was felt in most buildings around metropolitan Tokyo at 3:13 p.m. local time, but there were no reports of significant damage or injuries.
The operation of trains on the Shinkansen bullet trains or conventional lines in the area was not affected, said train operators East Japan Railway Co. and Central Japan Railway Co.
The U.S. Geological Survey said that the quake was centered beneath southern Ibaraki prefecture about 95 miles (155 km) north of Tokyo.
Seismologists have said that Japan receives about 20 per cent of the world's most powerful earthquakes due to its location on the Pacific "Ring of Fire."
