Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan

Administrative divisions
of Japan
Prefectural
Prefectures
Sub-prefectural
Municipal
Sub-municipal

A city designated by government ordinance (政令指定都市, seirei shitei toshi), also known as a designated city (指定都市, shitei toshi) or government ordinance city (政令市, seirei shi), is a Japanese city that has a population greater than 500,000 and has been designated as such by order of the Cabinet of Japan under Article 252, Section 19 of the Local Autonomy Law.

Overview

Designated cities are delegated many of the functions normally performed by prefectural governments in fields such as public education, social welfare, sanitation, business licensing and urban planning. The city government is generally delegated the various minor administrative functions in each area, and the prefectural government retains authority over major decisions. For instance, pharmaceutical retailers and small clinics can be licensed by designated city governments, but pharmacies and hospitals are licensed by prefectural governments.

Designated cities are also required to subdivide themselves into wards (区, ku) (broadly equivalent to the Boroughs of London or the Boroughs of New York City), each of which has a ward office conducting various administrative functions for the city government, such as koseki and juminhyo resident registration and tax collection. In some cities, ward offices are responsible for business licensing, construction permits and other administrative matters. The structure and the authorities of the wards are determined by municipal ordinances.

The 23 special wards of Tokyo are not part of this system, as Tokyo is a prefecture, and its wards are effectively independent cities. Although the two largest wards of Tokyo, Setagaya and Nerima, are populous enough to become designated cities, they are not considered to be "cities" within the meaning of the Local Autonomy Law and so are not designated such.

No cities designated by government ordinance have ever lost that status.

List of designated cities
Sapporo
Sendai
Niigata
Shizuoka
Hamamatsu
Nagoya
7
8
9
Fukuoka
Kumamoto
Designated cites in Japan (except for Greater Tokyo and Kansai area)
7: Okayama, 8: Hiroshima, 9: Kitakyushu
Saitama
Chiba
Kawasaki
Yokohama
Sagamihara
Designated cites in Greater Tokyo area
Nagoya
Kyoto
Osaka
Sakai
Kobe
Designated cites in Kansai area and Western Tōkai area

Cities designated by government ordinance have been established since 1956.[1]

Name Japanese Flag Population Date of designation Region Prefecture No. of wards Divisions
Chiba 千葉市 972,861 1992-04-01 Kantō Chiba 06 List
Fukuoka 福岡市 1,579,450 1972-04-01 Kyushu Fukuoka 07 List
Hamamatsu 浜松市 795,350 2007-04-01 Chūbu Shizuoka 07 List
Hiroshima 広島市 1,194,524 1980-04-01 Chūgoku Hiroshima 08 List
Kawasaki 川崎市 1,503,690 1972-04-01 Kantō Kanagawa 07 List
Kitakyushu 北九州市 945,595 1963-04-01 Kyushu Fukuoka 07 List
Kobe 神戸市 1,526,639 1956-09-01 Kansai Hyōgo 09 List
Kumamoto 熊本市 737,812 2012-04-01 Kyushu Kumamoto 05 List
Kyoto 京都市 1,468,980 1956-09-01 Kansai Kyoto 11 List
Nagoya 名古屋市 2,283,289 1956-09-01 Chūbu Aichi 16 List
Niigata 新潟市 807,450 2007-04-01 Chūbu Niigata 08 List
Okayama 岡山市 720,841 2009-04-01 Chūgoku Okayama 04 List
Osaka 大阪市 2,727,255 1956-09-01 Kansai Osaka 24 List
Sagamihara 相模原市 720,986 2010-04-01 Kantō Kanagawa 03 List
Saitama さいたま市 1,226,656 2003-04-01 Kantō Saitama 10 List
Sakai 堺市 833,544 2006-04-01 Kansai Osaka 07 List
Sapporo 札幌市 1,955,115 1972-04-01 Hokkaido Hokkaido 10 List
Sendai 仙台市 1,088,669 1989-04-01 Tōhoku Miyagi 05 List
Shizuoka 静岡市 697,578 2005-04-01 Chūbu Shizuoka 03 List
Yokohama 横浜市 3,732,616 1956-09-01 Kantō Kanagawa 18 List

Designated city requirements

To become a candidate for designated city status, a city must have a population greater than 500,000. An application for designation is made by a city with the approval of both the city and the prefectural assemblies.

The following cities have populations greater than 500,000 but have not yet been nominated. (Cities planning to apply for core city status are not shown. ※Core Cities, ※※Core cities at risk of dissolving)

History

The first form of the designated city system was enacted under Japan local government system in 1878 with the introduction of "wards." Under that system, wards existed in every city. Most cities had only one ward, but the largest cities at the time (Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto) were divided into 15, four, and two wards, respectively.

The municipal system enacted in 1889 replaced ward assemblies with city assemblies but retained ward assemblies in Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto, which had no assembly of their own but were governed by the prefectural assembly. In 1898, the three cities were allowed to form city assemblies. The ward system was adopted by three more cities prior to World War II: Nagoya (1908), Yokohama (1927), and Kobe (1931). Under a 1911 statute, wards were granted a corporate personality and so treated as local entities.

Following the war, the 1947 Local Autonomy Law grandfathered in the five subdivided cities (Tokyo having become a prefecture in 1943) as special cities (特別市, tokubetsu shi). The system was replaced by the designated city system when the Local Autonomy Law was amended, in 1956.

During the ensuing Japanese economic growth period, the government required designated cities to be forecast to reach a population of one million within the near future, but the requirement was dropped in 2005 to accommodate several geographically-large cities that were formed by mergers, under the government of Junichiro Koizumi.

See also

References
  1. Jacobs, A.J. ""Japan's Evolving Nested Municipal Hierarchy: The Race for Local Power in the 2000s,"]". Hindawi, Urban Studies Research, Vol. 2011 (2011), doi:10.1155/2011/692764. Archived from the original on 12 August 2020. Retrieved 23 March 2012.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.