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Cities of Japan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A city (市 shi?) is a local administrative unit in Japan. They are ranked on the same level as towns (machi) and villages (mura), but cities are not part of Districts (gun). Like other contemporary administrative units, they were by with the Local Autonomy Law of 1947.
Generally, a village or town can be promoted to a city when its population increases above fifty thousand, and a city can (but need not) be demoted to a town or village when its population decreases below fifty thousand. The least-populated city, Utashinai, Hokkaido, has population of mere six thousand, while a town in the same prefecture, Otofuke, Hokkaido, has nearly forty thousand. Larger cities of at least 200,000 inhabitants can achieve a special status, special city, core city or designated city.
Tokyo is informally thought of as a city in the western world, but is not a city under Japanese law. The "Tokyo Metropolitan Government" has prefectural powers and incorporated cities are within the Tokyo Metropolitan Government limits. Tokyo is the capital of Japan.
See List of cities in Japan and List of cities in Japan by population for a complete list.