Talk:Prefectures of Japan

Question

How does a Japanese prefecture differ from a French prefecture ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.193.125.87 (talk) 10:58, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

In France, the word "préfecture" generally refers to either the prefectoral office (of which there is one in each département), or the city in which it is located. In Japan, the prefecture is the entire area under the authority of the governor (so it corresponds to a French département, and actually it is sometimes translated as "département" in French, to avoid confusion). So in French you could say "I'm going to the préfecture", meaning the prefectoral office, probably of your département of residence for some administrative matter (this of course would be nonsensical in Japanese), or "Bordeaux is the préfecture of the Gironde département", meaning it is the city where the prefectoral office of that département is located. (The word "capital" is not used in this sense in French, but there is also the more general word "chef-lieu".) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.193.131.11 (talk) 02:45, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

"However, some people still call Tokyo-to "Tokyo Prefecture" in English." --- Where do people say "Tokyo Prefecture"? As a matter of personal experience, I've lived in Tokyo 20+ years working with fellow English teachers (from various English-speaking countries) and I have yet to hear "Tokyo Prefecture" used even accidentally. Nor do English-speaking residents of Tokyo say "Tokyo-to" unless they are speaking in Japanese. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.135.170.51 (talk) 14:58, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Link ambiguity

There is a high level of ambiguty in the links listed on this page. Most Japanese prefectures share the same name as their capital and should be clearly seperated.

I'm creating stub pages for the entries here using <prefecture name> plus the word prefecture appended to it e.g. Osaka prefecture.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

synthetik 05:03 Feb 6, 2003 (UTC)

If there is a list of Prefectures and their capitals, I'd like to include it in List of capitals of subnational entities Docu 13:32 Feb 15, 2003 (UTC)

I'm working on a tableized format of this page where I blantantly rip off your layout from Cantons of Switzerland ;) give me about two hours plus... synthetik 14:08 Feb 15, 2003 (UTC)

Please use the layout, incidentally I slightly changed it in the meantime ;-) -- Your table looks great, even improves on my layout. I included the list in List of capitals of subnational entities Docu 16:28 Feb 15, 2003 (UTC)

Thank you for helping me expanding the list. BTW there I added " prefecture" to all prefectures named after their capital. I suppose this the way you will be titling the articles/stubs Docu 19:58 Feb 15, 2003 (UTC)

Thats right, the goal is defenitly to have the prefecture appended to each name at some point in the near future. You saved me quite a bit of work that way thanks _(_ _)_

synthetik 00:53 Feb 16, 2003 (UTC)

Moved from User talk:Timwi

The following was moved from User talk:Timwi

begin

==Japanese prefecture capitalization==

Hello. You decapitalized Japanese prefectures but I think we reached consensus in favor of capitalization somewhere (someone's user talk?). --Nanshu 03:59, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I concur. "Prefecture" should be capitalized. We don't say "Cook county" or "Florida state" or "Manitoba province" or "Mexico city." -- Sekicho 08:30, Mar 14, 2004 (UTC)

I de-capitalised them for two major reasons. Firstly, most of the article texts didn't capitalise any of them. Secondly, it is my understanding of our naming convention that they shouldn't be capitalised. Furthermore, it is my understanding of our naming convention that they shouldn't even have the "prefecture" next to them; those that have unique names (like Shimane) should be just that, without the "prefecture". Those that don't (like Nagasaki), should have "(prefecture)" (also lower-case). — Timwi 12:42, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I don't have a strong opinion about capitalization, but I think "prefecture" or "Prefecture" is essential because it is difficult to determine whether a proper name is unique. I don't like the endless work of moving articles and fixing links. --Nanshu

You may have a point or may not. Regardless, please respect the convention. I think we had this issue before and we have settled to capitalize prefecture. It is just wasteful that someone renames articles and then someone else renames them back. We have to stop this. -- Taku 16:55, Mar 15, 2004 (UTC)

Please tell me where we've made the convention. I failed to find it. --Nanshu 02:28, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hi. Not wanting to come across as rude or anything, but please could you move this discussion to Talk:Prefectures of Japan? Thanks. — Timwi 02:39, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

end

Picture

Mutter. I'm confused. It looks perfectly legible and smooth on my home computer (which runs on a 1600x1200 CRT) but on my 1024x768 LCD at work, the numbers are all blocky and illegible. How odd. Anyone else seeing it as barely legible? :/ --Golbez 16:07, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

If you mean the map of prefectures, it looks fine to me on my work computer with a 1024x768 pixel CRT. Fg2 07:42, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

Also looks fine from home with (please don't laugh!) 800x600 CRT. Has your problem gone away?

Yeah, it has.. looks fine now! weird. Ah well, thanks. :) I was scared that I'd have to redo my map. ;) --Golbez 15:55, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

Something's weird about Wikipedia's servers. If you upload a new image with the same name, the old image keeps coming up. I've tried clearing my cache, using different browsers, shift-reload—the browser techniques do not work. It's as if the server has its own cache, and never clears it on its own.

The only way around it, as far as I've found, is to edit the article and change the pixel dimensions of the image. That forces the server to put a new version in the article. (Even going from 200 to 201px works.) As if editing the article forces Wikipedia to clear its server cache. So, you might have experienced that problem, or maybe there's a related problem. Anyhow, glad it worked out! Fg2 23:15, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

What's included?

Not knowing much about the topic, I had the impression that prefecture translates the Japanese administrative unit 県 (of 都道府県; see also Prefecture#Japanese_sense_of_prefecture, which is linked to ja:県). As written, though, it appears that the pluralized term also includes other types of units (都道府). Following the first sentence, perhaps this article should be called Jurisdictions of Japan? A-giau 21:00, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I don't see what you mean; that article states that there are 47 prefectures, anything below that is a subprefecture. Can you cite a different source, or elaborate? --Golbez 21:42, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

A-giau: This is similar to how Massachusetts, Pennsylvania etc. are "commonwealths," but for all practical purposes they're states of the United States. Likewise, Osaka, Kyoto, Hokkaido, and Tokyo are prefectures even though they aren't called ken in Japanese. (In fact, the English translation of fu is also "prefecture," so Hokkaido and Tokyo are the only prefectures that aren't legally called prefectures in English.) The difference between these jurisdictions and the other prefectures is so slight that it's not really reasonable to take them out of the list of prefectures. At any rate, Jurisdictions of Japan would have to include all the cities, towns, villages, districts, aza, wards, special wards, etc. etc. - Sekicho 22:38, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

This is probably off-topic, but a phrase Hokkaido prefecture is technically incorrect as do should translate to a prefecture (this is the same problem as HIV virus). In practice, though, no one says Hokkai Prefecture. -- Taku 02:26, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

Shinjuku

In what sense is Shinjuku the capital of Tokyo? I can't find anything relevant in the Shinjuku article. --Auximines 10:11, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd prefer not to call Shinjuku the capital of Tokyo, but in fact, the governor's office, legislature, and administration are located in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku, which as a special ward has the status of a city, and so could be called a capital city. Fg2 10:41, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Spelling of Prefectures

A survey is being conducted at Wikipedia_talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related_articles)#Prefectures and macrons to determine which prefectures should have their spelling "macron-ized", per the existing manual of style. Oita has been changed already, and each of the others is current being discussed (Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Hokkaido, Hyogo, and Kochi). Please join the discussion if you wish. Neier 00:32, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Toyama, not Fukuyama

In the second graphic, 16 is 富山(Toyama). It is not 福山(Fukuyama). The kanji is incorrect in the graphic itself.

Thanks for pointing that out, Karaokeyoga. I've changed the graphic. I hope it's correct now. Fg2 05:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

2003 proposal by Koizumi

The article mentions the proposal but does not state if it became law or not. Funnyhat 23:43, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

No change so far. Still occasionally debated. Fg2 06:37, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Regions

Perhaps I missed it, but what is the source for the list of regions? There's not really a problem with it, but, as was mentioned in the article, this is not an officially-used or recognized classification of prefectures. (In fact, I have heard or seen many slightly different lists of regions, and several of them overlap depending on who you're talking to, such as Kinki-Kansai-Chubu.) I'd be interested to know whether this is the most widely-used scheme, and how that was determined. Miemi 17:55, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Hokkaidō least populous?

Some anon IP removed the following sentence from the article: Today, Hokkaidō is the least populated of the four main Japanese islands. As far as I know, this is still true unless Shikoku somehow lost a lot of people. Anyone have any information on this? ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 06:52, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

The website Hokkaido's Business Environment puts Hokkaido's population at 5,683,062 according to an October 1, 2000 census. The World News Network (of perhaps questionable reliability?) puts it at 5,647,230 with no source. Shikoku Update, in what appears to be an officialish website, puts Shikoku's population at 4,159,000. Soooo. It seems like Shikoku is the smallest island. BilabialBoxing 09:05, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

1,453,680 Ehime [1]

1,006,931 Kagawa [[2]]

0,796,292 Kochi [[3]]

0,801,073 Tokushima [[4]]

4,057,976 Shikoku total

5,600,705 Hokkaido [5] (平成19年／エクセルファイル3月(42KB))

Fg2 10:37, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Hmm...looks like Shikoku's population is declining and Hokkaidō's is expanding then. Just wanted to make sure, since the anon IP didn't bother with an edit summary, either, so that didn't help any. Thanks (both of you). ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 10:48, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Prefecture suffix

From the article,

Usually, prefectures are called by their name only, without the suffix, except for Hokkaidō. However, the suffix is used when it is necessary to distinguish between the prefecture and a city of the same name. For example, Hiroshima-ken is the Japanese name of the prefecture, and Hiroshima-shi is its largest city.

General exposure to Japan and Japanese language reveals this not to be true. Prefectures are referred to by their name with the suffix at least as much if not more often making statement vacuous if not incorrect. Is there a particular reference that backs this up? Ian Lewis (talk) 02:03, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Shinjuku is the capital of Tokyo?

How is Shinjuku the capital of Tokyo? It's the location of the Tokyo Government but is there even an official capital of Tokyo? Is there a reference for this as well? Ian Lewis (talk) 02:12, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Please see discussion above. Although I wrote there that it "could be called a capital city" I'd prefer not to do so. I'd be happy with a blank in the Capital column of the table. I think we discussed this separately at Talk:Tokyo (it's probably in an old, old archive) and concluded that we should not list it as the capital in the article Tokyo. So the information box in Tokyo says "Capital n/a." Fg2 (talk) 07:17, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Requirements for each subdivision

What are the requirements for the following subdivisions in population, area etc.? jlog3000 (talk) 13:26, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

• District or County (Gun)
• Town (Chō or Machi)
• Village (Son or Mura)
• "ōaza"
• "aza"
• "chōme"

I don't think there are any requirements for district or village. Although there have been many changes, I suspect the districts are largely left alone apart from being abolished when they don't have any towns or villages left. They originated way back in the Ritsuryo state and it would make a good guess that they were originally holdings of powerful local elites but I certainly don't know that for a fact. The divisions of towns and villages (ōaza, aza, chōme) are probably just matters of convenience and at the discretion of the town or village, but I could be surprises by this. Villages shouldn't have minimums, since they're just the rest of the district that isn't a town. Probably the only one with prescribed minimums is the town. Again, just guesses. Fg2 (talk) 21:58, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Why Shinjuku is called the capital of Tokyo.

I think the confusion stems from the fact that, in Japanese, they don't use the word "capital" for prefectural capitals. They instead just use the term 県庁所在地, meaning "location of the Prefectural Office (capital building)." Whatever city the prefectural capital building happens to be in is the de facto capital of that prefecture. With Tokyo, the capital building is in Shinjuku, which is, itself, a separate municipality. Whether Japanese people would consider Shinjuku to be the "capital" of Tokyo in the sense that we native English speakers do would probably be cause for contention even among Japanese and whether or not such a distinction applies to the English version is a matter for debate. But it's food for thought. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.215.225.13 (talk) 02:57, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

How about a requirement to become a '-fu'?

I was just wondering. How about a requirement for prefectures to become '-fu' if they have a designated city? jlog3000 (talk) 13:31, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there are any requirements to become a fu; it appears just historical. Kind of like in the U.S. there are no requirements for a state to become a commonwealth; it's just the name that four states have chosen to use. The fu name doesn't appear to carry any higher status (and in the same way, "commonwealth" does not indicate any higher, or lower, status). I suspect (without looking it up) that Kyoto and Osaka were fu before the designated city system came into effect. So I would guess there's no connection. But I certainly don't know enough about that subject to write anything in an encyclopedia article without further research. Fg2 (talk) 21:49, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, I see your point, but I was wondering if the Japanese government can propose that idea of new urban prefectures or fu in some time in the future. jlog3000 (talk) 15:49, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Chart needs to be updated to account for redistricting

The chart shows a lot of old numbers for municipalities and districts that are no longer accurate because of redistricting. I've made a small start but a lot more is needed. We should use the numbers from the prefecture page for agreement. Is there any way to make that update automatically? Jrhoadley (talk) 14:14, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Japanese lesson

The article needs to avoid Japanese language lessons. This is supposed to be about government, but winds up with way too much history and language lesson. Needs to be re-written to avoid this in non-Japanese language Wikipedias. Student7 (talk) 19:23, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Government_of_Japan#Local_government has prefecture information which is probably more useful than found here. This is just a list, apparently. Needs it's own article "Japanese Prefecture." Student7 (talk) 19:35, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Prefectures by Island

The table of prefectures on the article has an "Island" column. Of course, this can never be accurate because Japan consists not only of four major islands but also of thousands of islands. Can we ignore the fact that Tokyo Metropolis has the southernmost island of Japan? So the first option is to delete the column. I do not think this will cause a big problem as we already have a "Region" column.

The current table assigns one of the four major islands to each prefecture. The exception is Okinawa Prefecture, which is totally outside the four major islands. I changed Ryūkyū Islands to Nansei Islands, but Student7 (talk · contribs) reverted saying "Ryykyu seems more specific."[6] Actually, neither is accurate (and I am considering deleting the whole column). The Nansei Islands contains the whole prefecture but some portion of Kagoshima Prefecture also constitutes the Nansei Islands. The Ryūkyū Islands itself is a problematic concept (as I discussed at Talk:Ryukyu Islands). The English usage of Ryukyu Islands resides nowhere in the geographic hierarchy defined by standardization bodies. That is why I do no think the term "Ryukyu Islands" is inappropriate in an article for Japanese administrative matters. Also, the Ryukyu Islands (as in English) comprise the Amami Islands, part of Kagoshima Prefecture. If we treat the phrase "Ryukyu Islands" as an translation equivalent of the Japanese Ryūkyū Shotō, which seems to have been rejected by some Wikipedians at Talk:Ryukyu Islands, it then excludes the Daitō Islands of Okinawa Prefecture. The second option is to change Ryūkyū Islands to Nansei Islands again. --Nanshu (talk) 01:22, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree that putting every island in each prefecture is well beyond our capability and readers interest. What about confining the heading instead to "major island" or "major island group?"

The trouble I have with Nansei is it is not generally recognized by English readers. That is, the major news networks do not use "Nansei" sufficiently that anyone can place them. I don't want to redefine a term, but Nansei seemed "higher level" and encompassed islands that weren't in Okinawa, for example. For me, it would be kind of like using "Caribbean Islands" instead of "British West Indies." Student7 (talk) 22:53, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I changed the header to "Major Island." With this header, I ignore the "minor" Daitō Islands and assign to Okinawa Prefecture "Ryukyu Islands," by which I actually mean Ryūkyū Shotō. --Nanshu (talk) 11:57, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Headings

Plausible changes which simplified the headings were mistakes here, here and here. The reasoning was not invalid -- for example, compare 2007 diff here. Over-simplification produces unintended consequences.

The different systems of parsing frame the ways in which Japanese prefectures are perceived. Perhaps the reverts of these 3 diffs need further discussion? --Ansei (talk) 13:54, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I've removed the cities because it is discussed in the paragraphs, and this article is about the prefectures, not the cities.Curb Chain (talk) 17:09, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, you are not wrong. Your reasoning is understandable, plausible, correct. Your edit is good. At the same time, I wonder if your own words may be the strongest argument for reverting your most recent diff here.

BEST

• Ken
• Fu
• To
• Dō

BETTER?

• Ken
• Fu (Osaka/Kyoto)
• To (Tokyo)
• Dō (Hokkaido)

BETTER?

• Ken _____?
• Fu _____?
• To _____?
• Dō _____?

In other words, when you explain that "this article is about the prefectures, not the cities", I think you create a strong argument for needing more or different words in these headings.

For example, Tokyo is known worldwide as one of largest city in the world; but in this context,

A. It is a geographical fact that the unique To includes the old city or Special Wards of Tokyo and also other lands in the Kantō and also many islands in the Pacific, not including the Senkaku Islands.

B. It is a historical fact that Tokyo has developed quite differently than anywhere else in Japan

• 1457-1869: Edo (江戸, Edō)
• 1869-1943: Tokyo Prefecture (東京府, Tokyo-fu)
• 1889-1943: Tokyo City (東京市, Tokyo-shi)
• 1943-present: Tokyo Metropolis (東京都, Tokyo-to)

C. It is an legal fact that Tokyo Prefecture features a governor -- not a mayor -- as its chief official.

I wonder if To without more is not as helpful as it could be or needs to be?

What about alternative wording, such as

• -ken
• Osaka-fu and Kyoto-fu
• Tokyo-to
• Hokkaido-dō

Perhaps we can come up with something else which clarifies and re-states these Japanese terms? --Ansei (talk) 18:20, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

While we continue to discuss this, perhaps there will be no objection to changing the sequence of these sections to reflect the traditional Japanese ordering. In other words,

the term todofuken (都道府県) refers to suffixes which distinguish Japan's seven sub-national jurisdictions:

• -to ....  one "metropolis" (都 -to'), which means Tokyo;
• -do ....  one “circuit” (道 -dō), which means Hokkaidō;
• -fu ....  two urban prefectures (府 -fu), which means Osaka and Kyoto; and
• -ken ... 43 other prefectures (県 -ken).

I guess that there is probably no cause for dispute in this traditional sequence? --Ansei (talk) 18:40, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Sure, the sequence of sections don't seem to have a problem if you change it to reflect what you are proposing. The section headings have to be as curt as possible, because the purpose of the heading is not to write a whole explanation in it.Curb Chain (talk) 00:55, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what is best as you propose, but listing "osaka-fu", "kyoto-fu", "tokyo-to", et al. is logical.Curb Chain (talk) 00:58, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Let's do nothing more for now. As you can see, I added a introduction sentence:

The prefectures are sometimes collectively referred to as to-dō-fu-ken (都道府県), which is a combination of the four terms.

This establishes an explicit context for your to-dō-fu-ken headings. If questions arise in the future, we can reach out to each other and we can return to this thread. --Ansei (talk) 01:55, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Template

The useful information at {{Japan Regions and Prefectures Labelled Map}} is the same as in the image in the upper right corner. Although the size is easier to read, the map overwhelmed list section of the article.

The image remains and the template has been removed, but this could be changed if we have consensus to do it. --Ansei (talk) 17:07, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Powers?

What powers do the prefectures enjoy? For example, may they raise and spend money independently of the central government? Grover cleveland (talk) 22:03, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Added. Grover cleveland (talk) 22:21, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Okinawa

In the Japanese ISO table, Okinawa is listed as a prefecture under the Kyushu region, and forms a separate region of its own in the next column (with no prefectures). Something doesn't compute! Ptilinopus (talk) 07:40, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Hmm... I notice someone has modified the above table, to remove the Okinawa Region, retaining Okinawa-Ken under the Kyushu region. So far so good... but the text states there are nine regions - and this leaves only eight. Is Okinawa-Ken considered part of the Kyushu region? Or is it supposed to be a region? Are there only 8 regions after all? Ptilinopus (talk) 06:41, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Niigata

Niigata is misspelled (as "Nigata") in the map. Jason Stormchild (talk) 00:10, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

This is still a an issue (2024), I can fix it but no way to upload it that i have found as of yet :/ Book Swallow (talk) 02:01, 3 July 2024 (UTC)