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The Japanese addressing system is used to identify a specific location in Japan. When written in Japanese characters, addresses start with the largest geographical entity and proceed to the most specific one. The Japanese system is complex and idiosyncratic, the product of the natural growth of urban areas, as opposed to the systems used in cities that are laid out as grids and divided into quadrants or districts.
Unlike most countries, addresses for shipment to Japan should be written in Japanese. When written in Latin characters, addresses follow the convention used by most Western addresses and start with the smallest geographic entity (typically a house number) and proceed to the largest. Even when translated using Latin characters, Japan Post requires that the address also be written in Japanese to ensure correct delivery. [1]
Japanese addresses begin with the largest division of the country, the prefecture. Most of these are called ken (県), but there are also three other special prefecture designations: to (都) for Tokyo, dō (道) for Hokkaidō and fu (府) for the two urban prefectures of Osaka and Kyoto.
Following the prefecture is the municipality. For a large municipality this is the city (shi, 市). Cities that have a large enough population (greater than 500,000 residents) and are regarded as such by order of the Cabinet of Japan are called designated cities, and are subdivided into wards (ku, 区), where in the prefecture of Tokyo, 23 of them are designated as the special ward (特別区, tokubetsu-ku) [2] [3] with added authority to the mayors. For smaller municipalities, the address includes the district (gun, 郡) followed by the town (chō or machi, 町) or village (mura or son, 村). In Japan, a city is separate from districts, which contain towns and villages.
For addressing purposes, municipalities may be divided into chō or machi (two different readings of the character 町, depending on the particular case) and/or aza (字). Despite using the same character as town, the machi here is purely a unit of address, not administration; likewise, there are also ku address divisions that are not administrative special wards. There are two common schemes:
However, exceptions abound, and the line between the schemes is often blurry as there are no clear delimiters for machi, aza, etc. There are also some municipalities like Ryūgasaki, Ibaraki which do not use any subdivisions.
Below this level, two styles of addressing are possible.
In both styles, since all address elements from chōme down are numeric, in casual use it is common to form them into a string separated by hyphens or the possessive suffix の (no), resulting in Asakusa 4-5-10 or Asakusa 4の5の10. This renders the two styles indistinguishable, but since each municipality adopts one style or the other, there is no risk of ambiguity. The apartment number may also be appended, resulting in 4-5-10-103.
Street names are seldom used in postal addresses (except in Kyoto and some Hokkaidō cities such as Sapporo).
Banchi blocks often have an irregular shape, as banchi numbers were assigned by order of registration in the older system, meaning that especially in older areas of the city they will not run in a linear order. For this reason, when giving directions to a location, people will often offer cross streets, visual landmarks and subway stations, such as "at Chūō-dori and Matsuya-dori across the street from Matsuya and Ginza station" for a store in Tokyo. Many businesses feature maps on their literature and business cards. Signs attached to utility poles often specify the city district name and block number, and detailed block maps of the immediate area are sometimes posted near bus stops and train station exits in larger cities.
In addition to the address itself, all locations in Japan have a postal code. After the reform of 1998, this begins with a three-digit number, a hyphen, and a four-digit number, for example 123-4567. A postal mark, 〒, may precede the code to indicate that the number following is a postal code.
In Japanese, the address is written in order from largest unit to smallest, with the addressee's name last of all. For example, the address of the Tokyo Central Post Office is
or
The order is reversed when writing in rōmaji. The format recommended by Japan Post [5] is:
In this address, Tokyo is the prefecture; Chiyoda-ku is one of the special wards; Marunouchi 2-Chome is the name of the city district; and 7-2 is the city block and building number. In practice [6] it is common for the chōme to be prefixed, as in Japanese, resulting in the somewhat shorter:
While almost all elements of the address are reversed when written in rōmaji, connected strings of numbers are treated as units and not reversed. Firstly, the "city block and building number" is a unit, and its digits are not reversed – in this example it is "7-2" in both Japanese and roman, though the Japanese (literally Marunouchi 2-Chōme 7-2) is partly reversed to "7-2, Marunouchi 2-Chōme" in roman if chōme is separate. Similarly, if the chōme is included, these also form a unit, so in this example the string is 2-7-2 in both Japanese and Western alphabet.
As mentioned above, there are certain areas of Japan that use somewhat unusual address systems. Sometimes the differing system has been incorporated into the official system, as in Sapporo, while in Kyoto the system is completely different from, but used alongside the official system. Kyoto and Sapporo have addresses based on their streets being laid out in a grid plan, unlike most Japanese cities.
Although the official national addressing system is in use in Kyoto – in Chiban style, with ward (区, ku), district (丁目, chōme), and land number (番地, banchi), the chō divisions are very small, numerous, and there is often more than one chō with the same name within a single ward, making the system extremely confusing. As a result, most residents of Kyoto use an unofficial system based instead on street names, a form of vernacular geography. This system is, however, recognized by the post office and by government agencies.
For added precision, the street-based address can be given, followed by the chō and land number. Sometimes multiple houses share a given land number, in which case the name (either just family name, or full name of resident) must also be specified; this name is generally displayed in front of the house on a hyōsatsu (表札, name plate), often decoratively presented, as are house numbers in other countries.
The system works by naming the intersection of two streets and then indicating if the address is north (上ル, agaru, "above"), south (下ル, sagaru, "below"), east (東入ル, higashi-iru, "enter east"), or west (西入ル, nishi-iru, "enter west") of the intersection. More precisely, the two streets of the intersection are not treated symmetrically: one names the street that the address is on, then gives a nearby cross street, and then specifies the address relative to the cross street. What this means is that a building can have more than one address depending on which cross street intersection is chosen.
For instance, the address of Kyoto Tower is listed on their website as: [7]
Following the postcode, this contains the city and ward, followed by the unofficial address, a space, and then the official address:
This address means "south of the intersection of Karasuma and Shichijō streets" – more precisely, "on Karasuma, below (south of) Shichijō" (Karasuma runs north-south, while Shichijō is an east-west cross street). The street address may alternatively be given as 烏丸通七条下ル (with street (通, dōri) inserted), indicating clearly that the address is on Karasuma street.
However, the system is flexible and allows for various alternatives, such as:
For less well known buildings, the official address is often given after the informal one, as in the address for the Shinatora Ramen restaurant:
As the initial part of the address is familiar, it is often abbreviated – for example, Kyōto-fu, Kyōto-shi (京都府京都市, "Kyoto Prefecture, Kyoto City") can be abbreviated to Kyōto-shi (京都市, "Kyoto City"), as in the Kyoto Tower listing. More informally, particularly on return addresses for in-town mail, the city and ward can be abbreviated to the initial character, with a dot or comma to indicate abbreviation – there are only 11 wards of Kyoto, so this is easily understood. For example, 京都市 Kyōto-shi is abbreviated to 京、 Kyō– and 下京区 Shimogyō-ku is abbreviated to 下、Shimo–. Combining these (and dropping okurigana), one may abbreviate the address of Kyoto Tower to:
Sapporo's system, though official, differs in structure from regular Japanese addresses. The city-center is divided into quadrants by two intersecting roads, Kita-Ichijo and Soseigawa; blocks are then named based on their distance from this point, and farther from the city center, multiple blocks are included in each. The east–west distance is indicated by chōme (a slightly unorthodox usage of chōme), while the north–south distance is indicated by jō, which has been incorporated into the chō name.
The address to Sapporo JR Tower is: [8]
This address indicates that it is the fifth building on a block located on 5 jō north and 2 chōme west of the center, named with the actual cardinal names of kita (north), minami (south), nishi (west), and higashi (east). The directional names for jō extend for about 7 kilometers to the north/south along the main Soseigawa Dori, but only about 3 kilometers at the most to the east and west; outside of that area, jō have other names, though the starting point of each is still the corner in the direction of the city center, often using landmarks such as the Hakodate Main Line or large roads to mark the new numbering.
For example, far in the outskirts is the Sapporo Tachibana Hospital, at: [9]
Building 12 on block 3 of a chōme measuring 11 jō north and 2 chōme west of where the Hakodate Main Line meets Tarukawa Street. Or Toyohira Ward office, at: [10]
Building 1 on block 1 of a chōme measuring 6 jō south and 10 chōme east of where a small street meets the Toyohira River. The direction is understood based on the quadrant of the city the jō is considered to be in, which may be off from the actual direction to the city center, depending on the landmark used.
Far-flung and less crowded parts of the city may instead use a standard chō name, rather than a numbered jō, such as Makomanai.
Many areas of Ōita Prefecture including the cities of Ōita and Usuki commonly use an unofficial parallel system known as "administrative wards" (行政区, gyōseiku) or "neighbourhood council names" (自治会名, jichikaimei). [11] While outwardly similar, these addresses end in kumi (組) or ku (区):
As the names indicate, these derive from traditional neighbourhood councils. While they continue to be used locally (e.g. school and electoral districts) and may be accepted for mail delivery, they are not considered official addresses, and individual buildings in each kumi will also have a standard ōaza-banchi address. [11] For example, Usuki City Hall, while within Suzaki 4-chome 1-kumi, has the formal address of Usuki 72-1, which may be prepended with ōaza for clarity:
Some cities in Ishikawa Prefecture, including Kanazawa and Nanao, sometimes use katakana in the iroha ordering (イ・ロ・ハ・ニ ... ) instead of numbers for blocks. These are called bu (部). For example, the address of the Kagaya Hotel in Nanao is: [12]
Some cities, including parts of Nagaoka, Niigata, use jikkan (甲・乙・丙 ... ) prefixed to the block number to indicate traditional divisions. These function similarly to chōme and are treated as such in addresses. For example, Yoita police station in Nagaoka has the address: [13]
The current addressing system was established after World War II as a slight modification of the scheme used since the Meiji era.
For historical reasons, names quite frequently conflict. It is typical in Hokkaidō where many place names are identical to those found in the rest of Japan, for example Shin-Hiroshima (literally new Hiroshima) to Hiroshima, [14] largely as the result of the systematic group emigration projects since the late 19th century to Hokkaidō; people from villages across mainland Japan dreamt to become wealthy farmers. Historians note that there is also a significant similarity between place names in Kansai region and those in northern Kyūshū. See Japanese place names for more.
Named roads (通り, tōri, dōri) are roads or sections deemed noteworthy and given a name. Unlike in other nations, named roads are not used in addresses but merely for logistic purposes; excepting in the above mentioned Kyoto system.
Kyoto, officially Kyoto City, is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. As of 2020, the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it the ninth-most populous city in Japan. The city is the cultural anchor of a substantially larger metropolitan area known as Greater Kyoto, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) home to a census-estimated 3.8 million people.
The Karasuma Line is one of the two lines of the Kyoto Municipal Subway operated by Kyoto Municipal Transportation Bureau in Kyoto, Japan. On maps, diagrams and signboards, the line is colored green, and its stations are given numbers following the letter "K". It serves seven of Kyoto's eleven wards: Sakyō-ku, Kita-ku, Kamigyō-ku, Nakagyō-ku, Shimogyō-ku, Minami-ku, and Fushimi-ku. It connects Kokusaikaikan in Sakyō-ku and Takeda in Minami-ku.
Daimaru (大丸) is a Japanese department store chain, principally located in the Kansai region of Japan. The chain is operated by Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores, a subsidiary of J. Front Retailing. At one time Daimaru was an independent company, The Daimaru, Inc. (株式会社大丸), headquartered in Chūō-ku, Osaka.
Nishi-ku is one of the 16 wards in the city of Nagoya in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. As of 1 October 2019, the ward has an estimated population of 150,480 and a population density of 8,393 persons per km². The total area is 17.93 km².
Aoi-ku is one of three wards of the city of Shizuoka in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, located in the northern part of the city. Aoi-ku borders Suruga-ku in the south and Shimizu-ku to the southeast; the west faces Shimada, Fujieda and Kawanehon and its northern tip extends into the border between Nagano Prefecture and Yamanashi Prefecture. It is the largest ward in Japan in terms of geographic area.
Sakyō-ku is one of the eleven wards in the city of Kyoto, in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. It is located in the northeastern part of the city.
Nishi-ku (西区) is one of eight wards in the city of Hiroshima, Japan. The Hiroshima–Nishi Airport was located in Nishi-ku.
Shiba (芝) is an area of Minato ward in Tokyo, Japan and one of districts in the Shiba area.
Chūō-ku is one of the ten wards in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan. Chūō-ku means "central ward" in Japanese. City administration and entertainment facilities are centred in this ward.
Ōdōri Station is a subway station in Chūō-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan, operated by Sapporo Municipal Subway. The station opened on 16 December 1971 as part of the first phase of the Namboku Line.
Marutamachi Station is a train station on the Kyoto Municipal Subway Karasuma Line in Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan.
Higashi-ku (東区) is one of the 10 wards in Sapporo, Hokkaidō, Japan. It is directly translated as "east ward", and is neighboured to Kita-ku, Chūō-ku, Shiroishi-ku, Ebetsu, Tōbetsu.
Kudankita (九段北) is a district of Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan, consisting of four chōme. It was a part of the former ward of Kōjimachi. As of March 1, 2007, its population is 1,404. Kudankita is a luxury and prestigious residential and business zone.
Hitotsubashi (一ツ橋) is an administrative and postal area of Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It was formerly Kanda-ku.
Toranomon (虎ノ門) is a business district of Minato, Tokyo.
Uchisaiwaichō (内幸町) is a district of Chiyoda, Tokyo, at the south-east corner of the ward bordering with Chūō and Minato. Uchisaiwaichō Station on the Toei Mita Line is located in the area. Parts of the Hibiya Station and Shimbashi Station are also located in the neighborhood.
The Fuji Fire and Marine Insurance Co., Ltd. is a Japanese insurance company. The company has its corporate headquarters in the Kamiyacho MT Building located in the Toranomon neighborhood of Minato, Tokyo. It also has an Osaka office in Chuo-ku borough, Osaka.
The Kyoto Municipal Subway 20 series (京都市交通局20系電車) is an electric multiple unit (EMU) commuter train type operated by the Kyoto Municipal Subway in Kyoto from March 2022.
Chuo Municipal Chuo Elementary School is a public elementary school in Minato, Chuo, Tokyo. It is operated by the Chuo City Board of Education (中央区教育委員会).