Prefectures of Japan

Prefecture 都道府県 Todōfuken
Category	Unitary State
Location	Japan
Number	47
Populations	584,982 (Tottori) – 12,059,237 (Tōkyō)
Areas	1,861.7 km2 (718.8 sq mi) (Kagawa) – 83,453.6 km2 (32,221.6 sq mi) (Hokkaido)
Government	Prefecture Government, Central Government
Subdivisions	Districts

The prefectures of Japan consist of 47 prefectures. They form the first level of jurisdiction and administrative division of Japan. They consist of 43 prefectures (県 , ken) proper, two urban prefectures (府 , fu , Osaka, and Kyoto), one "circuit" or "territory" (道 , dō , Hokkaido) and one "metropolis" (都 , to , Tokyo). The Meiji Fuhanken sanchisei administration created the first prefectures to replace the provinces of Japan in 1868.

Each prefecture's chief executive is a directly-elected governor (知事, chiji). Ordinances and budgets are enacted by a unicameral assembly (議会, gikai) whose members are elected for four-year terms.

Under the current Local Autonomy Law, each prefecture is subdivided into cities (市, shi) and districts (郡, gun) and each district into towns (町, chō/machi) and villages (村, son/mura). For example, Hokkaido has 14 subprefectures that act as branch offices (支庁, shichō) of the prefecture. Some other prefectures also have branch offices that carry out prefectural administrative functions outside the capital. Tokyo, the capital of Japan, is a merged city-prefecture; a metropolis, it has features of both cities and prefectures.

Background

The West's use of "prefecture" to label these Japanese regions stems from 16th-century Portuguese explorers' and traders' use of "prefeitura" to describe the fiefdoms they encountered there. Its original sense in Portuguese, however, was closer to "municipality" than "province". (Today, in turn, Japan uses its word ken (県), meaning "prefecture", to identify Portuguese districts while in Brazil the word "Prefeitura" is used to refer to a City 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.

The Meiji government established the current system in July 1871 with the abolition 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 former han territories, this number was reduced to 72 in the latter part of 1871, and 47 in 1888. The Local Autonomy Law of 1947 gave more political power to prefectures, and installed prefectural governors and parliaments.

In 2003, then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi proposed that the government consolidate the current prefectures into about 10 regional states. The plan called for each region to have greater autonomy than existing prefectures. This process would reduce the number of sub-prefecture administrative regions and cut administrative costs. The Japanese government is also considering a plan to merge several groups of prefectures, creating a sub-national administrative division system consisting of between nine and 13 states, and giving these states more local autonomy than the prefectures currently enjoy. As of August 2012, no reorganization has been scheduled.

Powers

Main article: Government of Japan § Local Government

Japan is an unitary state. The central government delegates many functions (such as education and the police force) to the prefectures and municipalities, but retains the overall right to control them. Although local government expenditure accounts for 70 percent of overall government expenditure, the central government controls local budgets, tax rates, and borrowing.

Types of prefecture

Historically, during the Edo period, the Tokugawa shogunate established bugyō-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 became fu (府), while the township-ruled zones and the rest of the bugyo-ruled zones became ken (県). Later, in 1871, the government designated Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto as fu, and relegated the other fu to the status of ken. During World War II, in 1943, Tokyo became a to, a new type of pseudo-prefecture.

Despite the differences in terminology, there is little functional difference between the four types of local governments. The sub-national governments are sometimes collectively referred to as to-dō-fu-ken (都道府県) in Japanese, which is a simple combination of the four terms.

To

Tokyo is referred to as to (都), which is often translated as "metropolis." The Japanese government translates Tōkyō-to as "Tokyo Metropolis" in almost all cases, and the government is officially called the "Tokyo Metropolitan Government". But there are some people who call Tōkyō-to "Tokyo Prefecture" in English.

Following the abolition of the han system, Tōkyō-fu (an urban prefecture like Kyoto and Osaka) encompassed a number of cities, the largest of which was Tokyo City. Tokyo City was divided into 15 wards. In 1943, Tokyo City was abolished, Tōkyō-fu became Tōkyō-to, and Tokyo's wards became the special wards, local authorities falling directly under the prefecture in hierarchy, each with their own elected assemblies (kugikai) and mayors (kuchō). A number of suburban villages and towns were converted to wards, bringing the total number of special wards to 35. The reorganization's aim was to consolidate the administration of the area around the capital by eliminating the extra level of authority in Tokyo. The central government wanted to have greater control over Tokyo due to Japan's deteriorating position in World War II and the possibility of emergency in the metropolis.

After the war, Japan was forced to decentralize Tokyo again, following the general terms of democratization outlined in the Potsdam 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 reorganized into the 23 special wards, because many of its citizens had either died during the war, left the city, or been drafted and didn't return.

There are some differences in terminology between Tokyo and other prefectures: police and fire departments are called chō (庁) instead of honbu (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.

In Osaka, several prominent politicians led by Tōru Hashimoto, mayor of Osaka City and former governor of Osaka Prefecture, are currently proposing an Osaka Metropolis plan, under which Osaka City, and possibly other neighboring cities, would be replaced by special wards similar to Tokyo's.

Dō

Hokkaido is referred to as a dō (道) or circuit. This term was originally used to refer to Japanese regions consisting of several provinces (e.g. the Tōkaidō east-coast region, and Saikaido 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 the period of Japanese rule.)

Hokkaido, the only remaining dō today, was not one of the original seven dō (it was known as Ezo in the pre-modern era). Its current name is believed to originate from Matsuura Takeshiro, an early Japanese explorer of the island. Since Hokkaido did not fit into the existing dō classifications, a new dō was created to cover it.

The Meiji government originally classified Hokkaido 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 Hokkaido 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 Hokkaido was incorporated, transportation on the island was still underdeveloped, so the prefecture was split into several "sub-prefectures" (支庁 shichō) that could fulfill administrative duties of the prefectural government and keep tight control over the developing island. These sub-prefectures 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.

"Hokkaido Prefecture" is, technically speaking, a redundant term, although it is occasionally used to differentiate the government from the island itself. The prefecture's government calls itself the "Hokkaido Government" rather than the "Hokkaido Prefectural Government".

Fu

Main article: Fu (country subdivision)

Osaka and Kyoto Prefectures are referred to as fu (府). The Classical Chinese character from which this is derived implies a core urban zone of national importance. Before World War II, different laws applied to fu and ken, but this distinction was abolished after the war, and the two types of prefecture are now functionally the same.

Ken

43 of the 47 prefectures are referred to as ken (県). The Classical Chinese character from which this is derived carries a rural or provincial connotation, and an analogous character is used to refer to the counties of China and counties of Taiwan and districts of Vietnam.

Lists of prefectures

The different systems of parsing frame the ways in which Japanese prefectures are perceived:

By Japanese ISO

The prefectures are also often grouped into eight regions (Chihō). Those regions are not formally specified, they do not have elected officials, nor are they corporate bodies. But the practice of ordering prefectures based on their geographic region is traditional. This ordering is mirrored in Japan's International Organization for Standardization (ISO) coding. From north to south (numbering in ISO 3166-2:JP order), the prefectures of Japan and their commonly associated regions are:

Hokkaidō	Tōhoku	Kantō	Chūbu	Kansai	Chūgoku	Shikoku	Kyūshū
1. Hokkaidō	2. Aomori 3. Iwate 4. Miyagi 5. Akita 6. Yamagata 7. Fukushima	8. Ibaraki 9. Tochigi 10. Gunma 11. Saitama 12. Chiba 13. Tōkyō 14. Kanagawa	15. Niigata 16. Toyama 17. Ishikawa 18. Fukui 19. Yamanashi 20. Nagano 21. Gifu 22. Shizuoka 23. Aichi	24. Mie 25. Shiga 26. Kyōto 27. Ōsaka 28. Hyōgo 29. Nara 30. Wakayama	31. Tottori 32. Shimane 33. Okayama 34. Hiroshima 35. Yamaguchi	36. Tokushima 37. Kagawa 38. Ehime 39. Kōchi	40. Fukuoka 41. Saga 42. Nagasaki 43. Kumamoto 44. Ōita 45. Miyazaki 46. Kagoshima 47. Okinawa

By English name

The default alphabetic order in this sortable table can be altered to mirror the traditional Japanese regions and ISO parsing.

Prefecture	Kanji	Capital	Region	Major Island	Population¹	Area²	Density³	Distr.	Municip.	ISO
Aichi	愛知県	Nagoya	Chūbu	Honshu	7,043,235	5,153.81	1,366	7	54	JP-23
Akita	秋田県	Akita	Tōhoku	Honshu	1,189,215	11,612.11	102	6	25	JP-05
Aomori	青森県	Aomori	Tōhoku	Honshu	1,475,635	9,606.26	154	8	40	JP-02
Chiba	千葉県	Chiba	Kantō	Honshu	5,926,349	5,156.15	1,149	6	54	JP-12
Ehime	愛媛県	Matsuyama	Shikoku	Shikoku	1,493,126	5,676.44	263	7	20	JP-38
Fukui	福井県	Fukui	Chūbu	Honshu	828,960	4,188.76	198	7	17	JP-18
Fukuoka	福岡県	Fukuoka	Kyushu	Kyushu	5,015,666	4,971.01	1,009	12	60	JP-40
Fukushima	福島県	Fukushima	Tōhoku	Honshu	2,126,998	13,782.54	154	13	59	JP-07
Gifu	岐阜県	Gifu	Chūbu	Honshu	2,107,687	10,598.18	199	9	42	JP-21
Gunma	群馬県	Maebashi	Kantō	Honshu	2,024,820	6,363.16	318	7	35	JP-10
Hiroshima	広島県	Hiroshima	Chūgoku	Honshu	2,878,949	8,476.95	340	5	23	JP-34
Hokkaidō	北海道	Sapporo	Hokkaido	Hokkaido	5,682,950	83,452.47	68	66	180	JP-01
Hyōgo	兵庫県	Kōbe	Kansai	Honshu	5,550,742	8,392.42	661	8	41	JP-28
Ibaraki	茨城県	Mito	Kantō	Honshu	2,985,424	6,095.62	490	7	44	JP-08
Ishikawa	石川県	Kanazawa	Chūbu	Honshu	1,180,935	4,185.32	282	5	19	JP-17
Iwate	岩手県	Morioka	Tōhoku	Honshu	1,416,198	15,278.51	93	10	33	JP-03
Kagawa	香川県	Takamatsu	Shikoku	Shikoku	1,022,843	1,861.70	549	5	17	JP-37
Kagoshima	鹿児島県	Kagoshima	Kyushu	Kyushu	1,786,214	9,132.42	196	8	43	JP-46
Kanagawa	神奈川県	Yokohama	Kantō	Honshu	8,489,932	2,415.42	3,515	6	33	JP-14
KochiKōchi	高知県	KochiKōchi	Shikoku	Shikoku	813,980	7,104.70	115	6	34	JP-39
Kumamoto	熊本県	Kumamoto	Kyushu	Kyushu	1,859,451	6,908.45	269	9	45	JP-43
Kyōto	京都府	Kyoto	Kansai	Honshu	2,644,331	4,612.93	573	6	26	JP-26
Mie	三重県	Tsu	Kansai	Honshu	1,857,365	5,760.72	322	7	29	JP-24
Miyagi	宮城県	Sendai	Tōhoku	Honshu	2,365,204	7,285.16	325	10	35	JP-04
Miyazaki	宮崎県	Miyazaki	Kyushu	Kyushu	1,170,023	6,684.67	175	6	26	JP-45
Nagano	長野県	Nagano	Chūbu	Honshu	2,214,409	12,598.48	163	14	77	JP-20
Nagasaki	長崎県	Nagasaki	Kyushu	Kyushu	1,516,536	4,092.80	371	4	21	JP-42
Nara	奈良県	Nara	Kansai	Honshu	1,442,862	3,691.09	391	7	39	JP-29
Niigata	新潟県	Niigata	Chūbu	Honshu	2,475,724	12,582.37	197	9	30	JP-15
OitaŌita	大分県	OitaŌita	Kyushu	Kyushu	1,221,128	5,804.24	210	3	18	JP-44
Okayama	岡山県	Okayama	Chūgoku	Honshu	1,950,656	7,008.63	278	10	27	JP-33
Okinawa	沖縄県	Naha	Kyushu	Ryukyu Islands	1,318,281	2,271.30	580	5	41	JP-47
OsakaŌsaka	大阪府	Ōsaka	Kansai	Honshu	8,804,806	1,893.18	4,652	5	43	JP-27
Saga	佐賀県	Saga	Kyushu	Kyushu	876,664	2,439.23	359	6	20	JP-41
Saitama	埼玉県	Saitama	Kantō	Honshu	6,938,004	3,767.09	1,827	8	63	JP-11
Shiga	滋賀県	Ōtsu	Kansai	Honshu	1,342,811	4,017.36	334	3	19	JP-25
Shimane	島根県	Matsue	Chūgoku	Honshu	761,499	6,707.32	114	5	19	JP-32
Shizuoka	静岡県	Shizuoka	Chūbu	Honshu	3,767,427	7,328.61	484	5	35	JP-22
Tochigi	栃木県	Utsunomiya	Kantō	Honshu	2,004,787	6,408.28	313	5	26	JP-09
Tokushima	徳島県	Tokushima	Shikoku	Shikoku	823,997	4,145.26	199	8	24	JP-36
Tōkyō	東京都	Tokyo	Kantō	Honshu	12,059,237	2,187.08	5,514	1	39	JP-13
Tottori	鳥取県	Tottori	Chūgoku	Honshu	613,229	3,507.19	175	5	19	JP-31
Toyama	富山県	Toyama	Chūbu	Honshu	1,120,843	4,247.22	264	2	15	JP-16
Wakayama	和歌山県	Wakayama	Kansai	Honshu	1,069,839	4,725.55	226	6	30	JP-30
Yamagata	山形県	Yamagata	Tōhoku	Honshu	1,244,040	9,323.34	133	8	35	JP-06
Yamaguchi	山口県	Yamaguchi	Chūgoku	Honshu	1,528,107	6,110.76	250	4	19	JP-35
Yamanashi	山梨県	Kōfu	Chūbu	Honshu	888,170	4,465.37	199	5	27	JP-19

Notes: ¹ as of 2000; ² km²; ³ per km²

Former prefectures

1870s

See this Japanese Wikipedia article for all the changes back then.

1880s

Prefecture	Japanese	Year of Abolishment	Fate
Sakai	堺県	1981	Merged into Osaka
Hakodate	函館県	1986	Merged into Hokkaido
Sapporo	札幌県
Nemuro	根室県

Territories lost after World War II

Prefecture	Japanese	Capital	Present name	Present name of capital
To Soviet Union / Russia (chō)
Karafuto	樺太庁	Toyohara	Sakhalin	Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk
To Republic of China / Taiwan (shū and chō)
Hōko	澎湖庁	Makō	Penghu	Magong
Karenkō	花蓮港庁	Karenkō	Hualien	Hualien
Shinchiku	新竹州	Shinchiku	Hsinchu	Hsinchu
Taichū	台中州	Taichū	Taichung	Taichung
Taihoku	台北州	Taihoku	Taipei	Taipei
Tainan	台南州	Tainan	Tainan	Tainan
Taitō	台東庁	Taitō	Taitung	Taitung
Takao	高雄州	Takao	Kaohsiung	Kaohsiung
To North Korea (dō)
Heian-hoku	平安北道	Shingishū	North Pyongan	Sinuiju
Heian-nan	平安南道	Heijō	South Pyongan	Pyongyang
Kankyō-hoku	咸鏡北道	Ranan	North Hamgyong	Ranam
Kankyō-nan	咸鏡南道	Kankō	South Hamgyong	Hamhung
Kōgen[note]	江原道	Shunsen	Kangwon	Chuncheon
Kōkai	黃海道	Kaishū	Hwanghae	Haeju
To South Korea (dō)
Chūsei-hoku	忠清北道	Seishū	North Chungcheong	Cheongju
Chūsei-nan	忠清南道	Taiden	South Chungcheong	Daejeon
Keiki[note]	京畿道	Keijō	Gyeonggi	Seoul
Keishō-hoku	慶尚北道	Taikyū	North Gyeongsang	Daegu
Keishō-nan	慶尚南道	Fusan	South Gyeongsang	Busan
Kōgen[note]	江原道	Shunsen	Gangwon	Chuncheon
Zenra-hoku	全羅北道	Zenshū	North Jeolla	Jeonju
Zenra-nan	全羅南道	Kōshū	South Jeolla	Gwangju
To Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (chō)
Nan'yō	南洋庁	Korōru	Palau	Koror
			Marshall Islands	Majuro
			Federated States of Micronesia	Palikir
			Northern Mariana Islands ( United States)	Saipan

Note: Due to the division of Korea, Kōgen (Kangwon/Gangwon) and Keiki (Gyeonggi) are divided between North Korea and South Korea. While each Korea has its own Kangwon/Gangwon Province, the North Korean portion of Gyeonggi has been absorbed into other provinces.

See also

• List of Japanese prefectures by population
• List of Japanese prefectures by GDP
• List of Japanese prefectures by area
• List of prefectural capitals in Japan
• List of Prefecture songs of Japan
• ISO 3166-2 codes for Japan
• List of prefectural governors in Japan

General

• List of regions of Japan
• Government of Japan

External links

• National Governors' Association website
• Map of Japan showing prefectures
• Japanese essay on types of prefectures
• CityMayors.com profile of prefectures