What is a Prefecture in Japan?
What is a Prefecture in Japan?
Prefecture is the most fundamental part of administrative division and primary jurisdiction of many countries, such as Japan and China. Japan has infused its own rich cultural and administrative rules and regulations into the prefecture system, thus to get more impact and greater good. Japan’s prefectures are divided on the basis of geographical distributions. These subdivided area of Japan; harmonize, categorize and make it easy for the Government to organize and administer these prefectures with more efficiency and perfection.
In simple terms, Prefectures of Japan are what states for America or province for Italy or Pakistan. As every state/ province is governed by different Governor, yet there is only one supreme leader (President) of the country.
Why 47 Prefectures?
It is obvious that division of a country into different subdivision is the basis of good administration and prosperity, but why Japan was divided into these 47 prefectures anyway? Simply stating, for the progression, survival and evolution of Japan in right direction, and in accordance with the time; it was essential for the Japan to study, observe and adapt the administrative structure of ruling modern and progressive countries of the world; while keeping the monarchic administrative style intact. For that reason Japanese adapt this administrative style during the Meiji regime. Meiji Government abolished the old conventional han system while establishing new prefecture system in the year 1871. Initially, all Japan was divided into approximately 300 prefectures, where many of these prefectures were part of conventional han system. But according to the need of time this number reduced to 72 in late 1871, and then to present number of 47 in the year 1881.
Word Origin
The word “prefecture” has Portuguese origin; and Japan had strong infatuation with Romans. Portuguese, who came to Japan for trade or exploration, were used to name different regions or field farms of Japan by this term. At the time of establishment of prefecture system, Japanese adapted the same term, as this word can easily be understood and translated into any language of the country that has Roman connections. This term was totally in accordance with Japanese culture, as according to this, all the governors in all prefectures were appointed the consent and orders of the emperor. Adaptation of prefecture system was totally suitable for the Japan, as it had all the perks of modern and developed countries, such as it was administratively revolutionizing like blooming western states, on the other hand, allowed to enjoy the monarchic status of emperorship.
Adaptation of Prefecture system
Adaptation of Prefecture system was one of the stepping stone for Japan after civil war, and establishment of ties with the blooming countries. As for the country that had its own rich culture and history; but didn’t had the skillful language to communicate and keep up with the revolutionizing western states in international relations, politics, business, education, art, industry and government; it was extremely difficult to normalize the political relations. Major western countries that were ruling high on the political and business world shared a few similarities, through which these nations grew up their political ties, trade, business and much more. Unfortunately, Japanese weren’t able to communicate with these nation, as they should be. And in such times, when you came out of anarchy and into commencement of progressive light, there are some very important decisions that Japan was bound to make immediately.
For the starters, Meiji regime brought up many adaptations in the language, among which adaptation of the word “prefecture” was one. So the establishment of prefecture system was one of the stepping stone for Japan towards more organized, westernized, developing (yet with an essence of Japanese culture), and interactive system that connects all Japan with regional divisions, plus make Japan visible on world’s map with better administration and more political ties.
Province — Ending with “Ken” (県)
As it has been described earlier that Japan has 47 prefectures. Most these prefectures (43 out of 47) use the word Ken after the actual name. Ken actually means provincial or rural distribution, and is classical Chinese character. Simply stating, Ken means province or just “prefecture”. But mostly only first name of the prefecture is usually used in everyday language.
- Aomori-ken
- Akita-ken
- Iwate-ken
- Yamagata-ken
- Miyagi-ken
- Niigata-ken
- Fukushima-ken
- Gunma-ken
- Tochigi-ken
- Ibaraki-ken
- Saitama-ken
- Chiba-ken
- Kanagawa-ken
- Yamanashi-ken
- Nagano-ken
- Shizuoka-ken
- Toyama-ken
- Ishikawa-ken
- Fukui-ken
- Gifu-ken
- Aichi-ken
- Shiga-ken
- Mie-ken
- Nara-ken
- Wakayama-ken
- Hyogo-ken
- Tottori-ken
- Shimane-ken
- Okayama-ken
- Hiroshima-ken
- Yamaguchi-ken
- Kagawa-ken
- Tokushima-ken
- Ehime-ken
- Kochi-ken
- Fukuoka-ken
- Saga-ken
- Nagasaki-ken
- Oita-ken
- Kumamoto-ken
- Miyzaki-ken
- Kagoshima-ken
- Okinawa-ken
Ending with — “Fu” (府)
Two prefecture are called as Fu. Fu also is an classical character of Chinese language that means self-governing urban region that has some national importance.
- Kyoto-fu
- Osaka-fu
Ending with — “Do” (道)
One prefecture is referred as do and Hokkaido is the only do present today.
Ending with “To” (都)
To prefecture means “Metropolis”, which includes only Tokyo-to.
Originally published at Go Travel Japan.
