234:), and there was also a number of minor territories such as spiritual (shrine/temple) holdings; while the shogunate domain comprised vast, contiguous territories, domains consisted of generally only one castle and castle town, usually a compact territory in the surrounding area, but beyond that sometimes a string of disconnected exclaves and enclaves, in some cases distributed over several districts in several provinces. For this reason alone, they were impractical as geographical units, and in addition, Edo period feudalism was tied to the nominal income of a territory, not the territory itself, so the shogunate could and did redistribute territories between domains, their borders were generally subject to change, even if in some places holdings remained unchanged for centuries. Provinces and districts remained the most important geographical frame of reference throughout the middle and early modern ages up to the restoration and beyond – initially, the prefectures were created in direct succession to the shogunate era feudal divisions and their borders kept shifting through mergers, splits and territorial transfers until they reached largely their present state in the 1890s.
273:. Geographically, the rural districts were mainly based on the ancient districts, but in many places they were merged, split up or renamed, in some areas, prefectural borders went through ancient districts and the districts were reorganized to match; urban districts were completely separated from the rural districts, most of them covered one city at large, but the largest and most important cities, the Edo period "three capitals" Edo/Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka comprised several urban districts. (This refers only to the city areas which were not organized as a single administrative unit before 1889, not the prefectures Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka which had initially been created in 1868 as successor to the shogunate city administrations, but were soon expanded to surrounding shogunate rural domain and feudal holdings and by 1878 also contained rural districts and in the case of Osaka, one other urban district/city from 1881.)
331:, 地方事務所, "local offices/bureaus") which generally had one district in their jurisdiction. However, for geographical and statistical purposes, districts continue to be used and are updated for municipal mergers or status changes: if a town or village (countrywide: >15,000 in 1889, <1,000 today) is merged into or promoted to a city (countrywide: 39 in 1889, 791 in 2017), the territory is no longer counted as part of the district. In this way, many districts have become extinct, and many of those that still exist contain only a handful of or often only one remaining municipality as many of today's towns and villages are also much larger than in the Meiji era. The districts are used primarily in the
28:
44:
20:
238:
253:, since their introduction in 1889, have always belonged directly to prefectures and are independent from districts. Before 1878, districts had subdivided the whole country with only few exceptions (Edo/Tokyo as shogunate capital and some island groups). In 1878, the districts were reactivated as administrative units, but the major cities were separated from the districts. All prefectures (at that time only
303:, the first non-oligarchic prime minister (although actually from a Morioka domain samurai family himself, but in a career as commoner-politician in the House of Representatives), managed to get his long-sought abolition of the districts passed – unlike the municipal and prefectural assemblies which had been an early platform for the
212:
As the power of the central government decayed (and in some periods revived) over the centuries, the provinces and districts, although never formally abolished and still connected to administrative positions handed out by the
Imperial court (or whoever controlled it), largely lost their relevance as
125:
The bureaucratic administration of Japan is divided into three basic levels: national, prefectural, and municipal. Below the national government there are 47 prefectures, six of which are further subdivided into subprefectures to better service large geographical areas or remote islands. The
327:; the districts no longer possess any administrations or assemblies since the 1920s, and therefore also no administrative authority – although there was a brief de facto reactivation of the districts during the Pacific War in the form of prefectural branch offices (called
787:
126:
municipalities (cities, towns and villages) are the lowest level of government; the twenty most-populated cities outside Tokyo
Metropolis are known as designated cities and are subdivided into wards. The district was initially called
762:(Links are to the English versions; English translations of Japanese administrative units and government institutions often vary , in this case, one can refer directly to the Japanese articles which are accessible from the main page)
377:. Each jurisdiction refers to its geographical position along the river from which the former province, and subsequent subprefecture, takes its name. "Kamikawa" means upper course of the river; "Nakagawa" means middle course.
780:
773:
213:
administrative units and were superseded by a hierarchy of feudal holdings. In the Edo period, the primary subdivisions were the shogunate cities, governed by urban administrators
551:/"Law on the organization of ku (urban districts/cities&wards), gun (rural districts), chō (urban settlements/towns/neighbourhoods) and son (villages/rural settlements)"
909:
526:
729:(bilingual Japanese/English series of papers by the Institute for Comparative Studies in Local Governance, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies):
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as part of the
Prussian-influenced local government reforms of 1888–90. From the 1890s, district governments were run by a collective executive council (
307:
before the
Imperial Diet was established and became bases of party power, the district governments were considered to be a stronghold of anti-liberal
241:
Districts in 1869, before administrative functions were introduced in 1878. After cities were separated in 1889, districts gradually became smaller. (
560:/"Index of Japanese laws and ordinances" (contains list of changes to the law, list of laws changed by it and links to full text in online archives)
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288:) and consisting of 3 additional members elected by the district assembly and one appointed by the prefectural governor – similar to cities (
276:
District administrations were set up in 1878, but district assemblies were only created in 1890 with the introduction of the district code
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Abuta
District, Rumoi District, Sorachi District, and Yufutsu District are similar, but each of them is a single district allotted to two
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86:. Districts have no governing function, and are only used for geographic or statistical purposes such as mailing addresses.
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boundaries are roughly aligned to provincial boundaries, most district names are unique within their prefectures.
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Volume 2: Akio Kamiko, Implementation of the City Law and the Town and
Village Law (1881 – 1908)
365:
provincial system, only a few years before the prefectural system was introduced, so its eleven
1004:
665:
Change of the number of municipalities and characteristics of the Great Meiji and Shōwa mergers
594:/"Index of Japanese laws and ordinances"), was abolished in 1921, but the district assemblies (
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501:
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48:
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had originally been written with the character 評, and not the character 郡 that appears in the
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and to identify the relevant geographical areas and collections of nearby towns and villages.
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Volume 3: Hiroshi Ikawa, The
Development of the Prewar Local Autonomy System (1909－1929)
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707:"Japan's Evolving Nested Municipal Hierarchy: The Race for Local Power in the 2000s,"
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tradition. The district assemblies and governments were abolished a few years later.
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Modern districts of Japan. Cities (white areas) are not part of districts.
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Volume 1: Akio Kamiko, The Start of Modern Local
Government (1868 – 1880)
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97:. From 1878 to 1921 district governments were roughly equivalent to a
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wooden tablets in a buried moat around the ancient capital of
523:, for divisions in other countries written with the same name
172:). Under the Taihō Code, the administrative unit of province
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Three
Kamikawa Districts and two Nakagawa Districts in the
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As of today, towns and villages also belong directly to
117:. District governments were entirely abolished by 1926.
696:
Kurt
Steiner (Stanford 1965): Local Government in Japan
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343:
Because district names had been unique within a single
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Historically, districts have at times functioned as an
720:
Historical Development of Japanese Local Governance
51:
in 1923. All assemblies would be abolished by 1926.
284:, 郡参事会), headed by the appointed district chief (
74:is composed of one or more rural municipalities (
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369:included several districts with the same names:
598:, 郡会) existed until 1923, the district chiefs (
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311:'s followers and the centralist-bureaucratic
130:and has ancient roots in Japan. Although the
1077:List of administrative divisions by country
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631:(in Japanese). Chūō Kōronsha. p. 64.
1075:Country spanning more than one continent
292:, headed by the mayor) and prefectures (
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572:The governing law, the district code (
136:says they were established during the
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190:was above district, and the village (
31:Former district government office of
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527:Districts of Taiwan during 1920-1945
516:List of dissolved districts in Japan
305:Freedom and People's Rights Movement
101:of the United States, ranking below
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357:, however, came much later to the
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14:
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627:Masashi Kinoshita 木下 正史 (2003).
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1106:Lists of subdivisions of Japan
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633:The discovery of thousands of
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269:), the precursors to the 1889
265:) and urban districts/cites (
1:
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602:, 郡長) and district offices (
16:Administrative unit in Japan
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582:entry for the revised 1899
578:Entry for the 1890 original
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339:Confusing cases in Hokkaidō
296:, headed by the governor).
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90:are not part of districts.
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33:Higashiyamanashi, Yamanashi
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643:confirmed the theory that
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1040:Timor-Leste (East Timor)
798:administrative divisions
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221:, the shogunate domain (
715:doi:10.1155/2011/692764
711:Urban Studies Research,
502:Kamikawa Subprefectures
152:. It was not until the
144:was originally written
476:Sorachi Subprefectures
428:Kamikawa Subprefecture
402:Kamikawa Subprefecture
389:Kamikawa Subprefecture
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47:District assembly of
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170:the Chinese division
529:under Japanese rule
489:Sōya Subprefectures
375:Hokkaidō Prefecture
355:Hokkaidō Prefecture
95:administrative unit
35:(reconstruction at
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800:of Asian countries
758:2019-01-24 at the
747:2015-06-10 at the
736:2021-02-21 at the
725:2013-06-12 at the
713:Vol. 2011 (2011);
709:by A.J. Jacobs at
606:, 郡役所) until 1926.
592:Nihon hōrei sakuin
558:Nihon hōrei sakuin
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649:Nihon Shoki
604:gun-yakusho
325:prefectures
217:machi-bugyō
168:(imitating
133:Nihon Shoki
82:) within a
1090:Categories
1055:Uzbekistan
1030:Tajikistan
940:Kyrgyzstan
905:Kazakhstan
815:Bangladesh
534:References
349:prefecture
243:Provincial
154:Taihō Code
105:and above
103:prefecture
84:prefecture
37:Meiji-mura
1005:Sri Lanka
865:Indonesia
367:provinces
299:In 1921,
1035:Thailand
980:Pakistan
960:Mongolia
955:Malaysia
928:district
893:district
840:Cambodia
756:Archived
745:Archived
734:Archived
723:Archived
510:See also
472:Kamikawa
385:Ishikari
361:ritsuryō
345:province
278:(gunsei)
232:/domains
80:villages
57:district
1060:Vietnam
1014:Taiwan
965:Myanmar
950:Lebanon
855:Georgia
819:Bhutan
587:in the
437:Tokachi
411:Tokachi
249:Cities
224:bakuryō
121:History
111:village
39:museum)
1045:Turkey
1018:county
995:Russia
935:Kuwait
923:county
900:Jordan
884:Japan
880:Israel
835:Brunei
636:mokkan
600:gunchō
596:gunkai
584:gunsei
576:, 郡制;
574:gunsei
424:Teshio
398:Teshio
286:gunchō
251:(-shi)
99:county
88:Cities
1065:Yemen
1010:Syria
990:Qatar
970:Nepal
860:India
850:Egypt
845:China
823:block
498:Iburi
485:Rumoi
459:Iburi
156:that
76:towns
975:Oman
945:Laos
918:city
875:Iraq
870:Iran
751:and
645:kōri
580:and
500:and
487:and
474:and
461:and
263:-gun
259:-ken
257:and
207:sato
183:kuni
158:kōri
142:kōri
128:kōri
115:city
107:town
740:,
661:MIC
271:shi
267:-ku
255:-fu
230:han
198:or
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69:gun
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66:,
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435:(
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202:郷
194:里
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177:国
174:(
164:郡
148:評
72:)
63:郡
60:(
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