A moving picture compression coding apparatus divides a screen into at least three regions and performs compression coding for the at least three regions by encoding units. The moving picture compression coding apparatus includes a coding control unit configured to control the encoding units to encode the data for different regions in parallel and to control the encoding such that the data for an upper region out of two adjacent upper and lower regions in the vicinity of the center of the screen of the at least three regions is encoded prior to the encoding of the data for the lower region or such that the data for a left region of two adjacent left and right regions in the vicinity of the center of the screen of the at least three regions is encoded prior to the encoding of the data for the right region.