A town (町; ''chō'' or ''machi'') is a
local administrative unit
Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics or NUTS (french: Nomenclature des unités territoriales statistiques) is a geocode standard for referencing the subdivisions of countries for statistical purposes. The standard, adopted in 2003, ...
in
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
. It is a local public body along with
prefecture (''ken'' or other equivalents),
city (''shi''), and
village (''mura''). Geographically, a town is contained within a
district
A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municipa ...
.
Note that the same word (町; ''machi'' or ''chō'') is also used in names of smaller regions, usually a part of a
ward
Ward may refer to:
Division or unit
* Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward
* Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...
in a city. This is a legacy of when smaller towns were formed on the outskirts of a city, only to eventually merge into it.
Towns
See also
*
Municipalities of Japan
Japan has three levels of governments: Government of Japan, national, Prefectures of Japan, prefectural, and municipal. The nation is divided into 47 prefectures. Each prefecture consists of numerous municipalities, with 1,719 in total (January 2 ...
*
Japanese addressing system
The Japanese addressing system is used to identify a specific location in Japan. When written in Japanese characters, addresses start with the largest geographical entity and proceed to the most specific one. When written in Latin characters, ad ...
References
{{reflist
External links
"Large_City_System_of_Japan";_graphic_shows_towns_compared_with_other_Japanese_city_types_at_p._1_ "Large_City_System_of_Japan";_graphic_shows_towns_compared_with_other_Japanese_city_types_at_p._1_[PDF_7_of_40
/nowiki>">DF_7_of_40">"Large_City_System_of_Japan";_graphic_shows_towns_compared_with_other_Japanese_city_types_at_p._1_[PDF_7_of_40/nowiki>
Towns_in_Japan.html" ;"title="DF_7_of_40
/nowiki>.html" ;"title="DF 7 of 40">"Large City System of Japan"; graphic shows towns compared with other Japanese city types at p. 1
[PDF 7 of 40
/nowiki>">DF 7 of 40">"Large City System of Japan"; graphic shows towns compared with other Japanese city types at p. 1 [PDF 7 of 40
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Towns in Japan">*