Prefectures of Japan


is divided into 47 prefectures, forming the country's first level of jurisdiction and administrative division. They include 43 proper, two, one and one.
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 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.
Each prefecture's chief executive is a directly elected Governor. Ordinances and budgets are enacted by a unicameral assembly whose members are elected for four-year terms.
Under a set of 1888–1890 laws on local government until the 1920s, each prefecture was subdivided into cities and districts and each district into towns and villages. Hokkaido has 14 subprefectures that act as General Subprefectural Bureaus and Subprefectural Bureaus 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 ":pt:Prefeitura|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, 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. 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, 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 subprefecture administrative regions and cut administrative costs. 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., this plan was hitherto abandoned.

Powers

Japan is a unitary state. The central government delegates many functions 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.
Prefectural government functions include the organization of the prefectural police force, the supervision of schools and the maintenance of prefectural 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, 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
Historically, during the Edo period, the Tokugawa shogunate established bugyō-ruled zones around the nine largest cities in Japan, and 302 township-ruled zones elsewhere. When the Meiji government began to create the prefectural system in 1868, the nine bugyō-ruled zones became fu, while the township-ruled zones and the rest of the bugyo-ruled zones became ken. 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 subnational governments are sometimes collectively referred to as todōfuken in Japanese, which is a combination of the four terms.

''Fu''

and Kyoto Prefectures are referred to as fu. 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. 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, counties of Taiwan and districts of Vietnam.

''Dō''

is referred to as a or circuit. This term was originally used to refer to Japanese regions consisting of several provinces. This was also a historical usage of the character in China.
Hokkai-dō, the only remaining today, was not one of the original seven . 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 classifications, a new was created to cover it.
The Meiji government originally classified Hokkaido as a "Settlement Envoyship", and later divided the island into three prefectures. These were consolidated into a single Hokkaido Department 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 "subprefectures" 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.
"Hokkaido Prefecture" is, technically speaking, a redundant term because itself indicates a prefecture, 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".

''To''

is referred to as to, 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".
Following the capitulation of shogunate Edo in 1868, Tōkyō-fu was set up and encompassed the former city area of Edo under the Fuhanken sanchisei. After the abolition of the han system in the first wave of prefectural mergers in 1871/72, several surrounding areas were merged into Tokyo, and under the system of "large districts and small districts" ', it was subdivided into eleven large districts further subdivided into 103 small districts, six of the large districts covered the former city area of Edo. When the ancient ritsuryō districts were reactivated as administrative units in 1878, Tokyo was subdivided into 15 districts ' and initially six districts. Both urban and rural districts, like everywhere in the country, were further subdivided into urban units/towns/neighbourhoods ' and rural units/villages '. The yet unincorporated communities on the Izu and Ogasawara island groups became also part of Tokyo in the 19th century. When the modern municipalities – cities and districts containing towns and villages – were introduced under the Yamagata-Mosse laws on local government and the simultaneous Great Meiji merger was performed in 1889, the 15 -ku became wards of Tokyo City, initially Tokyo's only independent city ', the six rural districts of Tokyo were consolidated in 85 towns and villages. 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 organized in 20 new wards. Also, by 1940, there were two more cities in Tokyo: Hachiōji City and Tachikawa City.
In 1943, Tokyo City was abolished, Tōkyō-fu became Tōkyō-to, and Tokyo's 35 wards remained Tokyo's 35 wards, submunicipal authorities falling directly under the municipality, but since the municipality was abolished, Tokyo's wards fell directly under prefectural or now "Metropolitan" authority. All other cities, towns and villages in Tokyo stayed cities, towns and villages in Tokyo. The reorganization'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 called chiji, but chōkan. 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 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 did not return. In the occupation reforms, special wards, each with their own elected assemblies and mayors, were intended to be equal to other municipalities even if some restrictions still applied. 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 recognized 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 the Tokyo metropolitan area, many of the other municipalities in Tokyo have transferred some of their authority to the Metropolitan government. For example, the Tokyo 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 as advocated by some politicians such as former Kanagawa governor Shigefumi Matsuzawa has not been established. Existing cross-prefectural fora of cooperation between local governments in the Tokyo metropolitan area are the Kantō regional governors' association
' and the "Shutoken summit". 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" 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 called chō instead of honbu, 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, then mayor of Osaka City and former governor of Osaka Prefecture, proposed an Osaka Metropolis plan, under which Osaka City, and possibly other neighboring cities, would be replaced by special wards similar to Tokyo's. The plan was narrowly defeated in a 2015 referendum, though a second referendum is currently planned for autumn 2020.

Lists of prefectures

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

By Japanese ISO

The prefectures are also often grouped into eight regions. 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 coding. From north to south, the prefectures of Japan and their commonly associated regions are:
HokkaidōTōhokuKantōChūbuKansaiChūgokuShikokuKyūshū

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

PrefectureKanjiCapitalKanjiRegionMajor IslandPopulation¹Area²Density³Distr.
愛知県Nagoya名古屋市ChūbuHonshu7,484,0945,172.481,446.9754JP-23052
秋田県Akita秋田市TōhokuHonshu1,022,83911,637.5487.9625JP-05018
青森県Aomori青森市TōhokuHonshu1,308,6499,645.59135.7840JP-02017
千葉県Chiba千葉市KantōHonshu6,224,0275,157.651,206.8654JP-12043
愛媛県Matsuyama松山市ShikokuShikoku1,385,8405,676.11244.2720JP-38089
福井県Fukui福井市ChūbuHonshu787,0994,190.49187.8717JP-18077
福岡県Fukuoka福岡市KyushuKyushu5,102,8714,986.401,023.41260JP-40092
福島県Fukushima福島市TōhokuHonshu1,913,60613,783.74138.81359JP-07024
岐阜県Gifu岐阜市ChūbuHonshu2,032,53310,621.29191.4942JP-21058
群馬県Maebashi前橋市KantōHonshu1,973,4766,362.28310.2735JP-10027
広島県Hiroshima広島市ChūgokuHonshu2,844,9638,479.45335.5523JP-34082
北海道Sapporo札幌市HokkaidoHokkaido5,383,57983,424.3168.666180JP-01011–016
兵庫県Kōbe神戸市KansaiHonshu5,536,9898,400.96659.1841JP-28073
茨城県Mito水戸市KantōHonshu2,917,8576,097.06478.6744JP-08029
石川県Kanazawa金沢市ChūbuHonshu1,154,3434,186.09275.8519JP-17076
岩手県Morioka盛岡市TōhokuHonshu1,279,81415,278.4083.81033JP-03019
香川県Takamatsu高松市ShikokuShikoku976,7561,876.72520.5517JP-37087
鹿児島県Kagoshima鹿児島市KyushuKyushu1,648,7529,186.94179.4843JP-46099
神奈川県Yokohama横浜市KantōHonshu9,127,3232,415.833,778.2633JP-14045
高知県KochiKōchi高知市ShikokuShikoku728,4617,103.93102.5634JP-39088
熊本県Kumamoto熊本市KyushuKyushu1,786,9697,409.35241.2945JP-43096
京都府Kyoto京都市KansaiHonshu2,610,1404,612.19565.9626JP-26074
三重県Tsu津市KansaiHonshu1,815,8275,774.40314.5729JP-24059
宮城県Sendai仙台市TōhokuHonshu2,334,2157,282.22320.51035JP-04022
宮崎県Miyazaki宮崎市KyushuKyushu1,104,3777,735.31142.8626JP-45098
長野県Nagano長野市ChūbuHonshu2,099,75913,104.29154.81477JP-20026
長崎県Nagasaki長崎市KyushuKyushu1,377,7804,132.09333.4421JP-42095
奈良県Nara奈良市KansaiHonshu1,365,0083,691.09369.8739JP-29074
新潟県Niigata新潟市ChūbuHonshu2,305,09812,584.10183.2930JP-15025
大分県OitaŌita大分市KyushuKyushu1,166,7296,340.71184318JP-44097
岡山県Okayama岡山市ChūgokuHonshu1,922,1817,114.50270.21027JP-33086
沖縄県Naha那覇市KyushuRyukyu Islands1,434,1382,281.12628.7541JP-47098
大阪府Ōsaka大阪市KansaiHonshu8,838,9081,905.144,639.9543JP-2706x
佐賀県Saga佐賀市KyushuKyushu833,2452,440.68341.4620JP-41095
埼玉県Saitamaさいたま市KantōHonshu7,261,2713,797.751,912863JP-11048
滋賀県Ōtsu大津市KansaiHonshu1,413,1844,017.38351.8319JP-25077
島根県Matsue松江市ChūgokuHonshu694,1886,708.24103.5519JP-32085
静岡県Shizuoka静岡市ChūbuHonshu3,701,1817,777.42475.8535JP-22054
栃木県Utsunomiya宇都宮市KantōHonshu1,974,6716,408.09308.2526JP-09028
徳島県Tokushima徳島市ShikokuShikoku756,0634,146.65182.3824JP-36088
東京都Shinjuku新宿区KantōHonshu13,513,7342,190.936,168.1139JP-1303x
042
鳥取県Tottori鳥取市ChūgokuHonshu573,6483,507.05163.6519JP-31085
富山県Toyama富山市ChūbuHonshu1,066,8834,247.61251.2215JP-16076
和歌山県Wakayama和歌山市KansaiHonshu963,8504,724.69204630JP-30075
山形県Yamagata山形市TōhokuHonshu1,122,9579,323.15120.4835JP-06023
山口県Yamaguchi山口市ChūgokuHonshu1,405,0076,112.30229.9419JP-35083
山梨県Kōfu甲府市ChūbuHonshu835,1654,465.27187527JP-19055


Notes: ¹ as of 2015; ² km²; ³ per km²

Former prefectures

1870s

See :ja:廃藩置県|this Japanese Wikipedia article for all the changes in that period. See also the English Wikipedia List of Japanese prefectures by population#Historical demography of prefectures of Japan for lists of prefectures since the late 1860s.

1880s

Lost after World War II

Here are some territories that were lost after World War II. This doesn't include all the territories of the Empire of Japan such as Manchukuo.

General