Japan is divided into 47prefectures (都道府県,todōfuken,[todoːɸɯ̥ꜜkeɴ]ⓘ), which rank immediately below the national government and form the country's first level ofjurisdiction andadministrative division. They include 43 prefectures proper (県,ken), twourban prefectures (府,fu:Osaka andKyoto), one regional prefecture (道,dō:Hokkaidō) and one metropolis (都,to:Tokyo). In 1868, theMeijiFuhanken sanchisei administration created the first prefectures (urbanfu and ruralken) to replace the urban and rural administrators (bugyō,daikan, etc.) in theparts of the country previously controlled directly by the shogunate and a few territories of rebels/shogunate loyalists who had not submitted to the new government such asAizu/Wakamatsu. In 1871, all remaining feudal domains(han) were also transformed into prefectures, so that prefectures subdivided the whole country. In several waves of territorial consolidation, today's 47 prefectures were formed by the turn of the century. In many instances, these are contiguous with the ancient ritsuryōprovinces of Japan.[1]
Each prefecture's chief executive is adirectly electedgovernor (知事,chiji).Ordinances and budgets are enacted by aunicameral assembly (議会,gikai) whose members are elected for four-year terms.
Under a set of 1888–1890 laws on local government[2] until the 1920s, each prefecture (then only 3-fu and 42-ken;Hokkaidō andOkinawa-ken were subject to different laws until the 20th century) was subdivided into cities (市,shi) and districts (郡,gun) and each district into towns (町,chō/machi) and villages (村,son/mura).Hokkaidō has 14subprefectures that act as General Subprefectural Bureaus (総合振興局,sōgō-shinkō-kyoku, "Comprehensive Promotion Bureau") and Subprefectural Bureaus (振興局,shinkō-kyoku, "Promotion Bureau") of the prefecture. Some other prefectures also have branch offices that carry out prefectural administrative functions outside the capital.Tokyo, thecapital of Japan, is a merged city-prefecture; a metropolis, it has features of both cities and prefectures.
Each prefecture has its ownmon for identification, the equivalent of a coat of arms in the West.
The West's use of "prefecture" to label these Japanese regions stems from 16th-century Portuguese explorers andtraders use of "prefeitura" to describe thefiefdoms they encountered there.[citation needed] Its original sense in Portuguese, however, was closer to "municipality" than "province". Today, in turn, Japan uses its wordken (県), meaning "prefecture", to identifyPortuguese districts while in Brazil the word "Prefeitura" is used to refer to acity hall.
Those fiefs were headed by a local warlord or family. Though the fiefs have long since been dismantled, merged, and reorganized multiple times, and been granted legislative governance and oversight, the rough translation stuck.
TheMeiji government established the current system in July 1871 with theabolition of the han system and establishment of the prefecture system (廃藩置県,haihan-chiken). Although there were initially over 300 prefectures, many of them being formerhan territories, this number was reduced to 72 in the latter part of 1871, and 47 in 1888. TheLocal Autonomy Law of 1947 gave more political power to prefectures, and installed prefectural governors and parliaments.
In 2003,Prime MinisterJunichiro Koizumi proposed that the governmentconsolidates the current prefectures into about 10 regional states (so-calleddōshūsei). The plan called for each region to have greater autonomy than existing prefectures. This process would reduce the number of subprefecture administrative regions and cut administrative costs.[3] The Japanese government also considered a plan to merge several groups of prefectures, creating a subnational administrative division system consisting of between nine and 13 states, and giving these states more local autonomy than the prefectures currently enjoy.[4] As of August 2012, this plan was abandoned.
Japan is aunitary state. The central government delegates many functions (such aseducation and thepolice force) to the prefectures andmunicipalities, but retains the overall right to control them. Although local government expenditure accounts for 70 percent of overallgovernment expenditure, the central government controls local budgets,tax rates, and borrowing.[5]
Prefectural government functions include the organization of the prefectural police force, the supervision of schools and the maintenance of prefectural schools (mainly high schools), prefectural hospitals,prefectural roads, the supervision of prefectural waterways and regional urban planning. Their responsibilities include tasks delegated to them by the national government such as maintaining most ordinary national roads (except in designated major cities), and prefectures coordinate and support their municipalities in their functions. De facto, prefectures as well as municipalities have often been less autonomous than the formal extent of the local autonomy law suggests, because of national funding and policies. Most of municipalities depend heavily on central government funding – a dependency recently further exacerbated in many regions by the declining population which hits rural areas harder and earlier (cities can offset it partly through migration from the countryside). In many policy areas, the basic framework is set tightly by national laws, and prefectures and municipalities are only autonomous within that framework.
Historically, during theEdo period, theTokugawa shogunate establishedbugyō-ruled zones (奉行支配地) around the nine largest cities in Japan, and 302 township-ruled zones (郡代支配地) elsewhere. When the Meiji government began to create the prefectural system in 1868, the nine bugyō-ruled zones becamefu (府), while the township-ruled zones and the rest of the bugyō-ruled zones becameken (県). Later, in 1871, the government designatedTokyo,Osaka, andKyoto asfu, and relegated the otherfu to the status ofken. DuringWorld War II, in 1943, Tokyo became ato, a new type of pseudo-prefecture.
Despite the differences in terminology, there is little functional difference between the four types of local governments. The subnational governments are sometimes collectively referred to astodōfuken (都道府県;[todoːɸɯ̥ꜜkeɴ]) in Japanese, which is a combination of the four terms.
Tokyo,capital city of Japan is referred to asto (都;[toꜜ]), which is often translated as "metropolis". The Japanese government translatesTōkyō-to (東京都;[toːkʲoꜜːto]) as "Tokyo Metropolis" in almost all cases, and the government is officially called the "Tokyo Metropolitan Government".
Following the capitulation of theTokugawa shogunate in 1868,Tōkyō-fu (an urban prefecture like Kyoto and Osaka) was set up and encompassed the former city area of Edo under theFuhanken sanchisei. After theabolition of the han system in the first wave of prefectural mergers in 1871/72, several surrounding areas (parts ofUrawa,Kosuge,Shinagawa andHikone prefectures) were merged into Tokyo, and under the system of (numbered) "large districts and small districts"(daiku-shōku), it was subdivided into eleven large districts further subdivided into 103 small districts, six of the large districts (97 small districts) covered the former city area of Edo.[6] When the ancient ritsuryō districts were reactivated as administrative units in 1878, Tokyo was subdivided into 15 [urban] districts(-ku) and initially six [rural] districts (-gun; nine after theTama transfer fromKanagawa in 1893, eight after the merger ofEast Tama andSouth Toshima intoToyotama in 1896). Both urban and rural districts, like everywhere in the country, were further subdivided into urban units/towns/neighbourhoods(-chō/-machi) and rural units/villages(-mura/-son). The yet unincorporated communities on the Izu (previously part ofShizuoka) and Ogasawara (previously directly Home Ministry-administrated) island groups became also part of Tokyo in the 19th century. When the modern municipalities – [district-independent] cities and [rural] districts containing towns and villages – were introduced under theYamagata-Mosse laws on local government and the simultaneous Great Meiji merger was performed in 1889, the 15-ku became wards ofTokyo City, initially Tokyo's only independent city(-shi), the six rural districts of Tokyo were consolidated in 85 towns and villages.[7] In 1893, the three Tama districts and their 91 towns and villages became part of Tokyo. As Tokyo city's suburbs grew rapidly in the early 20th century, many towns and villages in Tokyo were merged or promoted over the years. In 1932, five complete districts with their 82 towns and villages were merged into Tokyo City and organised in 20 new wards. Also, by 1940, there were two more cities in Tokyo:Hachiōji City andTachikawa City.
In 1943, Tokyo City was abolished,Tōkyō-fu becameTōkyō-to, and Tokyo-shi's 35 wards remained Tokyo-to's 35 wards, but submunicipal authorities of Tokyo-shi's wards which previously fell directly under the municipality, with the municipality now abolished, fell directly under prefectural or now "Metropolitan" authority. All other cities, towns and villages in Tokyo-fu stayed cities, towns and villages in Tokyo-to. The reorganisation's aim was to consolidate the administration of the area around the capital by eliminating the extra level of authority in Tokyo. Also, the governor was no longer calledchiji, butchōkan (~"head/chief [usually: of a central government agency]") as in Hokkaidō). The central government wanted to have greater control over all local governments due to Japan's deteriorating position in World War II – for example, all mayors in the country became appointive as in the Meiji era – and over Tokyo in particular, due to the possibility of emergency in the metropolis.
After the war, Japan was forced to decentralise Tokyo again, following the general terms of democratisation outlined in thePotsdam Declaration. Many of Tokyo's special governmental characteristics disappeared during this time, and the wards took on an increasingly municipal status in the decades following the surrender. Administratively, today's special wards are almost indistinguishable from other municipalities.
The postwar reforms also changed the map of Tokyo significantly: In 1947, the 35 wards were reorganised into the23 special wards, because many of its citizens had either died during the war, left the city, or been drafted and did not return.[citation needed] In the occupation reforms, special wards, each with their own elected assemblies (kugikai) and mayors (kuchō), were intended to be equal to other municipalities even if some restrictions still applied. (For example, there was during the occupationa dedicated municipal police agency for the 23 special wards/former Tokyo City, yet the special wards public safety commission was not named by the special ward governments, but by the government of the whole "Metropolis". In 1954, independent municipal police forces were abolished generally in the whole country, and the prefectural/"Metropolitan" police of Tokyo is again responsible for the whole prefecture/"Metropolis" and like all prefectural police forces controlled by the prefectural/"Metropolitan" public safety commission whose members are appointed by the prefectural/"Metropolitan" governor and assembly.) But, as part of the "reverse course" of the 1950s some of these new rights were removed, the most obvious measure being the denial of directly elected mayors. Some of these restrictions were removed again over the decades. But it was not until the year 2000 that the special wards were fully recognised as municipal-level entities.
Independently from these steps, as Tokyo's urban growth again took up pace during the postwar economic miracle and most of the main island part of Tokyo "Metropolis" became increasingly core part of theTokyo metropolitan area, many of the other municipalities in Tokyo have transferred some of their authority to the Metropolitan government. For example, theTokyo Fire Department which was only responsible for the 23 special wards until 1960 has until today taken over the municipal fire departments in almost all of Tokyo. A joint governmental structure for the whole Tokyo metropolitan area (and not only the western suburbs of the special wards which are part of the Tokyo prefecture/Metropolis") as advocated by some politicians such as former Kanagawa governorShigefumi Matsuzawa[8] has not been established (see alsoDōshūsei). Existing cross-prefectural fora of cooperation between local governments in the Tokyo metropolitan area are the Kantō regional governors' association(Kantō chihō chijikai)[9][10] and the "Shutoken summit" (formally "conference of chief executives of nine prefectures and cities",9 to-ken-shi shunō kaigi).[11] But, these are not themselves local public entities under the local autonomy law and national or local government functions cannot be directly transferred to them, unlike the "Union of Kansai governments"(Kansai kōiki-rengō)[12] which has been established by several prefectural governments in the Kansai region.
There are some differences in terminology between Tokyo and other prefectures: police and fire departments are calledchō (庁) instead ofhonbu (本部), for instance. But the only functional difference between Tōkyō-to and other prefectures is that Tokyo administers wards as well as cities. Today, since the special wards have almost the same degree of independence as Japanese cities, the difference in administration between Tokyo and other prefectures is fairly minor.
Hokkaidō is referred to as adō (道;[doꜜː]) orcircuit. This term was originally used to refer to Japanese regions consisting of severalprovinces (e.g. theTōkaidō east-coast region, andSaikaido west-coast region). This was also a historical usage of the character in China. (In Korea, this historical usage is still used today and was kept during theperiod of Japanese rule.)
Hokkai-dō (北海道;[hokkaꜜidoː]), the only remainingdō today, was not one of the original sevendō (it was known asEzo in the pre-modern era). Its current name is believed to originate fromMatsuura Takeshiro, an early Japanese explorer of the island. Since Hokkaidō did not fit into the existingdō classifications, a newdō was created to cover it.
The Meiji government originally classified Hokkaidō as a "Settlement Envoyship" (開拓使,kaitakushi), and later divided the island into three prefectures (Sapporo, Hakodate, and Nemuro). These were consolidated into a single Hokkaido Department (北海道庁,Hokkaido-chō) in 1886, at prefectural level but organized more along the lines of a territory. In 1947, the department was dissolved, and Hokkaidō became a full-fledged prefecture. The-ken suffix was never added to its name, so the-dō suffix came to be understood to mean "prefecture".
When Hokkaidō was incorporated, transportation on the island was still underdeveloped, so the prefecture was split into several "subprefectures" (支庁,shichō) that could fulfill administrative duties of the prefectural government and keep tight control over the developing island. These subprefectures still exist today, although they have much less power than they possessed before and during World War II. They now exist primarily to handle paperwork and other bureaucratic functions.
"Hokkaidō Prefecture" is, technically speaking, a redundant term becausedō itself indicates a prefecture, although it is occasionally used to differentiate the government from the island itself. The prefecture's government calls itself the "Hokkaidō Government" rather than the "Hokkaidō Prefectural Government".
Osaka andKyoto Prefectures are referred to asfu (府; pronounced[ɸɯꜜ] when a separate word, but[ꜜɸɯ] when part of the full name of a prefecture, e.g.[kʲoꜜːto] and[ɸɯꜜ] become[kʲoːtoꜜɸɯ]). The Classical Chinese character from which this is derived implies a core urban zone of national importance. Before World War II, different laws applied tofu andken, but this distinction was abolished after the war, and the two types of prefecture are now functionally the same.
43 of the 47 prefectures are referred to asken (県; pronounced[keꜜɴ] when a separate word but[ꜜkeɴ] when part of the full name of a prefecture, e.g.[aꜜitɕi] and[keꜜɴ] become[aitɕi̥ꜜkeɴ]). The Classical Chinese character from which this is derived carries a rural or provincial connotation, and an analogous character is used to refer to thecounties of China,counties of Taiwan anddistricts of Vietnam.
The prefectures are traditionally grouped into eightregions (地方,chihō).[1] Those regions are not formally specified, they do not have elected officials, nor are they corporate bodies. This ordering is mirrored in Japan'sInternational Organization for Standardization (ISO) coding.[14] From north to south (numbering inISO 3166-2:JP order), the prefectures of Japan and their commonly associated regions are:
^Mochida, "Local Government Organization and Finance: Japan", inShah, Anwar (2006).Local Governance in Industrial Countries. World Bank.Archived from the original on 8 January 2014. Retrieved1 December 2013.
^"全国都道府県市区町村別面積調 (10月1日時点)" [Areas of prefectures, cities, towns and villages (1 October)](PDF).Geospatial Information Authority of Japan. Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism. 1 October 2020. p. 5.Archived(PDF) from the original on 4 March 2021. Retrieved18 March 2021.
^都庁は新宿区. Tokyo Metropolitan Government. Archived fromthe original on 19 April 2014. Retrieved12 April 2014. Shinjuku is the location of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office. But Tokyo is not a "municipality". Therefore, for the sake of convenience, the notation of prefectural is "Tokyo".
^Post-war administrative division changes are not reflected in this table. The capital of the former Japanese administration is not necessarily the capital of the present-day equivalent.
^Due to thedivision of Korea, Kōgen (Kangwon/Gangwon), Keiki (Gyeonggi) and Kōkai (Hwanghae) are divided between North Korea and South Korea. While each Korea has its own Kangwon/Gangwon Province, the North Korean portion of Gyeonggi and the South Korean portion of Hwanghae have been absorbed into other provinces.
^Shunsen (Chuncheon) is in present-day South Korea.
^After World War II, the islands of Taiwan and Penghu were placed under the administration of the Republic of China underGeneral Order No. 1, although they nominally remained part of Japan. Before the post-war treaties were to be signed by the ROC and Japan, the ROC government was defeated in theChinese Civil War to theChinese Communist Party (CCP) and decamped to the island of Taiwan. Japan relinquished the claims to Taiwan and Penghu in theTreaty of San Francisco on 28 April 1952, but the sovereignty of the islands remained undetermined to this day. Excluding Kinmen and Matsu, which form the rump Fujian Province, Taiwan and Penghu are still today governed by the Republic of China in a post-war capacity recognized by a few states as the sole legitimate government of "China". See alsoPolitical status of Taiwan andTheory of the Undetermined Status of Taiwan.
