How Japanese addresses and administrative divisions work

Japan has two tiers of local government: 47 prefectures and about 1,700 municipalities. Every other name in an address is only a name. This page explains each part of an address, largest first. The map shows every one of them with its real boundary.

An example, one part per column, with its reading and what it is:

The parts of an address

What comes after the prefecture depends on the kind of municipality.

Two kinds of 区 (ku, ward)

Same character, two different things. The part before 区 tells you which.

The word at the end of each part

Reading an address住所の読み方

Japanese addresses go from large to small, the reverse of English. 〒530-0001 大阪府大阪市北区梅田1丁目3番20号 reads Ōsaka-fu, Ōsaka-shi, Kita-ku, Umeda 1-chōme 3-ban 20-gō. That is prefecture, city, ward, named area and chōme, block, building. 〒 marks the postal code.

The last three numbers are usually shortened to 1-3-20. They come from the 住居表示 (jūkyo hyōji, residence indication) system of 1962, which numbers blocks and buildings by position. Some areas never switched to it. They still use the older 番地 (banchi) land-parcel numbers, which follow the order of registration. That is why in some neighbourhoods the numbers along a street are not in order.

The postal code is separate from the rest of the address. Japan Post assigns it, and one code can cover parts of several chōme.

The whole structure全体の構造

Japan is a unitary state. Below the national government there are exactly two tiers of elected local government: prefectures, and municipalities.

Regions, districts, subprefectures, city wards, and chōme all appear on maps and in addresses, but none of them is a third tier. Reading a Japanese address is mostly knowing which parts are governments and which are only names.

• Prefecture都道府県 (todōfuken)Japan has 47. Each elects a governor and an assembly.
• Municipality市町村 (shichōson)Japan has about 1,700. Each elects a mayor and an assembly.
• Special ward特別区 (tokubetsu-ku)There are 23, all in Tokyo. Counted with municipalities.
• Everything elseその他 (sonota)Names for places, not governments.

Why four different suffixes都道府県の違い

The 47 prefectures together are called 都道府県 (todōfuken). The word is made of the four suffixes they use: to, dō, fu, ken. The suffixes are historical labels, not ranks. A 県 governor and a 府 governor have the same office under the same law.

Only one of the four makes a practical difference: 都 (to). Tokyo alone has the special-ward system. Even so, Tokyo is a prefecture like the other 46.

• ken県Used by 43 of the 47 prefectures. The ordinary word for prefecture.
• fu府Osaka and Kyoto, which were imperial and administrative centres.
• to都Tokyo. Marks the special-ward arrangement.
• dō道Hokkaidō. From its history as a frontier circuit.

Cities, towns, villages市町村

The three ordinary types of municipality differ by size and by a few extra powers, not by rank. A village and a city of three million are both one municipality with an elected mayor and assembly.

To become a 市 (shi, city), a municipality generally needs about 50,000 residents and a built-up centre. Larger cities can take over some prefectural functions: core cities from about 200,000 residents, and ordinance-designated cities from about 500,000. Only designated cities are divided into wards.

• City市 (shi)Japan has about 790 cities. The largest 20 are designated cities with wards.
• Town町 (chō / machi)Japan has about 740 towns. Each town fixes its own reading. Eastern Honshū mostly says machi, Hokkaidō and western Japan mostly chō.
• Village村 (son / mura)Japan has about 180 villages. Same standing as a city, smaller population.
• Special ward特別区 (ku)There are 23, all in Tokyo. City-like, with a few services kept by the metropolis.

Districts (郡)郡について

A district, 郡 (gun), is a group of towns and villages in a rural area. Districts had governments until 1926. Since then there is no district office, no district budget, and no district election.

Districts still appear in addresses, postal codes, and statistics, which is why they look like a working tier. A district never contains a city. When a town becomes a city, it leaves its district, so districts shrink over time and sometimes disappear. An address never contains both 市 (shi) and 郡 (gun).

The eight regions八地方区分

Hokkaidō, Tōhoku, Kantō, Chūbu, Kansai, Chūgoku, Shikoku, and Kyūshū-Okinawa are the grouping taught in schools and used in weather forecasts, sports leagues, and sales territories.

Regions have no legal existence. Nobody governs a region, and different sources draw them differently. Mie is put in Kansai or in Tōkai, Yamanashi in Chūbu or in Kantō, and Okinawa is sometimes separated from Kyūshū.

Subprefectures支庁・振興局

Some prefectures have branch offices that each cover part of the prefecture. Hokkaidō has 14, because it is about the size of Austria and is governed from one capital. Tokyo has them for its island chains, and a few other prefectures have similar offices.

A subprefecture is a field office of the prefectural government, staffed by prefectural employees. It has no assembly and no election, so it is not a tier between prefecture and municipality.

The 47 prefectures都道府県

Each prefecture has a page of its own: the name in kanji and kana, the capital, population and area, the prefectures it borders, and every municipality in it with a link to its boundary on the map. All 47 prefectures