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List of regions of Japan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

List of regions of Japan
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Japan is often divided into regions, each containing one or more of the country's 47 prefectures at large. Sometimes, they are referred to as "blocs" (ブロック, burokku), or "regional blocs" (地域ブロック, chiiki burokku) as opposed to more granular regional divisions. They are not official administrative units, though they have been used by government officials for statistical and other purposes since 1905. They are widely used in, for example, maps, geography textbooks, and weather reports, and many businesses and institutions use their home regions in their names as well, for example Kyushu National Museum, Kinki Nippon Railway, Chūgoku Bank, and Tōhoku University.

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Map of the regions of Japan as preferred by the English Wikipedia (for other divisions, see #Other regional divisions). From northeast to southwest: Hokkaidō (red), Tōhoku (yellow), Kantō (green), Chūbu (cyan), Kansai (indigo), Chūgoku (orange), Shikoku (purple), and Kyūshū & Okinawa (grey).

One common division groups the prefectures into eight regions. In this arrangement, of the four main islands of Japan, Hokkaidō, Shikoku, and Kyūshū, each form their own region, with Kyūshū also including the Satsunan Islands. The largest island, Honshū, is split into five regions. Okinawa Prefecture is usually considered part of Kyūshū, but it is sometimes treated as its own ninth region.

Japan has eight High Courts, but their jurisdictions do not match the typical eight-region geographical division (see #Other regional divisions and Judicial system of Japan for details).

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Table

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Regions and islands

This is a list of Japan's major islands, traditional regions, and subregions, going from northeast to southwest.[10][11] The eight traditional regions are marked in bold.

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Other regional divisions

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In many contexts in Japan (government, media markets, sports, regional business or trade union confederations), regional groupings are used that digress from the above-mentioned common 8-region geographical division. The 8-region model is frequently regarded as a standard on the English Wikipedia and some other English-language publications. Examples of regional divisions used by other particular institutions include:

More information Region, Prefectures ...
More information Region, Prefectures ...
More information Region, Prefectures (Nagano is split) ...
More information Region, Prefectures ...
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Regional proportional representation constituencies for the lower house of the Japanese parliament
More information Constituency, Prefectures ...
More information High court, Prefectures ...
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Football regions of Japan
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More information Region, Prefectures ...
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Regions as administrative units

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1945 seat of the Chūgoku governorate-general in Hiroshima City, previously and today a building used by Hiroshima University

In the later stages of World War II, in preparation for an Allied invation of the home islands, regions served as administrative units between the Home Ministry and the governments of prefectures from 1943. Initially, nine "regional administrative joint conferences" (地方行政協議会, chihō gyōsei kyō-kaigi) were set up, each comprising several prefectural governments under the leadership of one prefectural government. In 1945, they were consolidated into eight centralized "regional governorates-general" (地方総監府, chihō sōkan-fu) with authority of command over the subordinate prefectural governments. The regions corresponded territorially to the military districts (軍管区, gunkan-ku) as used by the Imperial Army in 1945. They were namely:

More information Region (-chihō), Prefectures (-to/-chō/-fu/-ken) ...

After capitulation, the governorates-general were immediately dissolved by GHQ/SCAP and the (in the Empire: very limited) local autonomy of prefectural governments and their elected assemblies restored to be eventually substantially expanded by the Constitution and the Local Autonomy Law in 1947.

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See also

References

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