Kyoto, officially Kyoto City, is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the 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.
An independent city or independent town is a city or town that does not form part of another general-purpose local government entity.
Japan is divided into 47 prefectures, which rank immediately below the national government and form the country's first level of jurisdiction and administrative division. They include 43 prefectures proper, two urban prefectures, one regional prefecture and one metropolis. In 1868, the Meiji Fuhanken sanchisei administration created the first prefectures to replace the urban and rural administrators in the parts 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 as Aizu/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 ritsuryō provinces of Japan.
A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions of municipalities, school district, or political district.
A city is a local administrative unit in Japan. Cities are ranked on the same level as towns and villages, with the difference that they are not a component of districts. Like other contemporary administrative units, they are defined by the Local Autonomy Law of 1947.
In Japan, a district is composed of one or more rural municipalities within a prefecture. Districts have no governing function, and are only used for geographic or statistical purposes such as mailing addresses. Cities are not part of districts.
Special wards are a special form of municipalities in Japan under the 1947 Local Autonomy Law. They are city-level wards: primary subdivisions of a prefecture with municipal autonomy largely comparable to other forms of municipalities.
The Local Autonomy Law, passed by the House of Representatives and the House of Peers on March 28, 1947 and promulgated as Law No. 67 of 1947 on April 17, is an Act of devolution that established most of Japan's contemporary local government structures and administrative divisions, including prefectures, municipalities and other entities. On July 16, 1999, the law was amended to eliminate administrative functions imposed upon local governments by the central governments and to establish Committee for Settling National-Local Disputes. The law and other relevant laws have been amended after the revision to promote decentralization.
A city designated by government ordinance, also known as a designated city or government ordinance city, is a Japanese city that has a population greater than 500,000 and has been designated as such by order of the Cabinet of Japan under Article 252, Section 19, of the Local Autonomy Law.
Urawa is one of ten wards of the city of Saitama, in Saitama Prefecture, Japan, and is located in the northeastern part of the city. Urawa-ku is the governmental center of Saitama City and houses most of the city's administrative offices including the city hall, as well as the offices of Saitama Prefectural government. Also, there are several newspaper branch offices and three broadcasting stations.
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. When written in Latin characters, addresses follow the convention used by most Western addresses and start with the smallest geographic entity and proceed to the largest. 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.
Sagamihara is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. As of 1 May 2021, the city has an estimated population of 723,470, with 334,812 households, and a population density of 1,220 persons per km2. The total area of the city is 328.91 square kilometres (126.99 sq mi). Sagamihara is the third-most-populous city in the prefecture, after Yokohama and Kawasaki, and the fifth most populous suburb of the Greater Tokyo Area. Its northern neighbor is Machida, with which a cross-prefectural merger has been proposed.
Japan has three levels of governments: national, prefectural, and municipal. The nation is divided into 47 prefectures. Each prefecture consists of numerous municipalities, with 1,719 in total. There are four types of municipalities in Japan: cities, towns, villages and special wards. In Japanese, this system is known as shikuchōson (市区町村), where each kanji in the word represents one of the four types of municipalities. Some designated cities also have further administrative subdivisions, also known as wards. But, unlike the Special wards of Tokyo, these wards are not municipalities.
Tokyo City was a municipality in Japan and part of Tokyo-fu which existed from 1 May 1889 until its merger with its prefecture on 1 July 1943. The historical boundaries of Tokyo City are now occupied by the special wards of Tokyo. The newly-merged government became what is now Tokyo, also known as the Tokyo Metropolis or, ambiguously, Tokyo Prefecture.
Tokyo Prefecture was a Japanese government entity that existed between 1868 and 1943.
The bureaucratic administration of Japan is divided into three basic levels: national, prefectural, and municipal. They are defined by the Local Autonomy Law of 1947.
Saitama is the capital and the most populous city of Saitama Prefecture, Japan. Its area incorporates the former cities of Urawa, Ōmiya, Yono and Iwatsuki. It is a city designated by government ordinance. Being in the Greater Tokyo Area and lying 15 to 30 kilometres north of central Tokyo, many of its residents commute into Tokyo. As of 1 February 2021, the city had an estimated population of 1,324,854, and a population density of 6,093 people per km². Its total area is 217.43 square kilometres (83.95 sq mi).
Naka-ku is one of seven wards of Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan, located in the central part of the city. It encompasses the site of Hamamatsu Castle and Hamamatsu Station, the central business district and a number of high density residential areas. Although its area is the smallest of the seven wards of Hamamatsu, it has the largest population. It is bordered by Higashi-ku, Kita-ku, Minami-ku, and Nishi-ku.
The politics of Tokyo City, as the capital of the Empire of Japan, took place under special regulations that limited its local autonomy compared to other municipalities in Japan. In 1943, the city's independent institutions were eliminated altogether under the authoritarian Tōjō cabinet and the administration was absorbed by the appointed government of Tokyo prefecture.
Politics of Osaka City, as in all municipalities of Japan, takes place in the framework of local autonomy that is guaranteed by chapter 8 of the Constitution and laid out in the Local Autonomy Law. As one of Japan's 20 major cities designated by government ordinance, Osaka City has some administrative responsibilities that are handled by the prefectures in ordinary municipalities and is subdivided into wards.
