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 n ...
. 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 counties, several municipalities, subdivision ...
.
Note that the same word (町; ''machi'' or ''chō'') is also used in names of smaller regions, usually a part of a
ward 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: national, prefectural, and municipal. The nation is divided into 47 prefectures. Each prefecture consists of numerous municipalities, with 1,719 in total (January 2013 figures There are four types of munici ...
*
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 alphabet, Lati ...
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
/nowiki>
Towns in Japan">*