Cities of Japan

Cities in Japan are one of the basic local entities of the nation.^[1]

Japan's smallest sub-national jurisdictions are sometimes grouped together. The term shichoson combines suffixes which recognize the municipalities,^[1] including

• "city" (市, shi)^[2]
• "town" (町, cho)
• "village" (村, son)

The small cities generally have populations of over 30,000.

There are three defined classes or categories of big cities.^[3]

• Designated cites, population over 500,000^[4]
• Core cities, population over 300,000^[5]
• Special cities, population over 200,000^[6]

Each of the largest cities does many of the things normally done by prefectures.^[3]

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Web-Japan.org, "Local self-government," p. 1. Retrieved 2012-12-19.
2. ↑ Jacobs, A.J. "Japan's Evolving Nested Municipal Hierarchy: The Race for Local Power in the 2000s," Urban Studies Research, (2011); doi:10.1155/2011/692764. Retrieved 2012-12-19.
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1} Web-Japan.org, "Local self-government," p. 3. Retrieved 2012-12-19.
4. ↑ Jacobs, Table 1. Retrieved 2012-12-19.
5. ↑ Jacobs, Table 2. Retrieved 2012-12-19.
6. ↑ Jacobs, Table 3. Retrieved 2012-12-19.