Yamaguchi 4th district (山口県第4区 ''Yamaguchi-ken dai-yon-ku'') was a single-member electoral district for the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...

, the lower house of the National Diet of Japan. It was located in Western

Yamaguchi Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Yamaguchi Prefecture has a population of 1,377,631 (1 February 2018) and has a geographic area of 6,112 Square kilometre, km2 (2,359 Square mile, sq mi). ...

and consisted of the cities of Shimonoseki and Nagato. The seat was held by former

Prime Minister of Japan The is the head of government of Japan. The prime minister chairs the Cabinet of Japan and has the ability to select and dismiss its ministers of state. The prime minister also serves as the commander-in-chief of the Japan Self-Defense Force ...

Shinzo Abe until his assassination in July 2022. As of September 2011, 266,456 voters were registered in the district, giving its voters well above average (347,878 voters per district) vote weight. Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (''Sōmu-shō'', lit. "Ministry of general affairs")
平成23年9月2日現在選挙人名簿及び在外選挙人名簿登録者数
/ref> Unlike many prefectures where the capital is also the most populous city, Yamaguchi's major city is Shimonoseki, located at the western tip of Honshū and adjacent to

Kyushu is the third-largest island of Japan's Japanese archipelago, four main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands (i.e. excluding Okinawa Island, Okinawa and the other Ryukyu Islands, Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Ryukyu Islands, Islands ...

island's Fukuoka-Kitakyūshū metropolitan area which lies just south across the Kanmon Straits. Yamaguchi is home to the Kan Abe - Nobusuke Kishi- Shintarō Abe (non-prime minister, father of Shinzo Abe)- Eisaku Satō prime ministerial family whose members have represented the prefecture in the Diet for much of the postwar era and the Giichi Tanaka prime ministerial family that produced its first two elected governors. Western Yamaguchi formed the four-member 1st district until the electoral reform of the 1990s, its representatives included Shintarō Abe, Shinzō Abe (former

) and Tatsuo Tanaka, but also other prominent conservatives such as finance minister Yoshirō Hayashi or Takeo Kawamura who went on to become Chief Cabinet Secretary in the 2000s. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) usually won the district three seats to one. In the electoral reform, the 1st district was split up into the single-member 3rd and 4th districts. In the first post-reform election of 1996, the 4th district was contested by Shinzō Abe and Takaaki Koga, himself a former Liberal Democrat who in 1993 took the opposition seat in the 1st district from the

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for the Renewal Party. But Abe won, and easily held onto the seat from then on. He was elected LDP president and Prime Minister in 2006 against Tarō Asō and Sadakazu Tanigaki in succession to Junichiro Koizumi ( Kanagawa 11th district), but resigned after one year. In 2012, the party – in opposition since 2009 – once more elected Shinzo Abe as the third LDP president not to become prime minister immediately after his election. Abe then subsequently won the 2012 general election in a landslide victory against the DPJ of Yoshihiko Noda ( Chiba 4th district), returning the LDP to power (with coalition partner New Komeito, the LDP have a two-thirds majority and can break a deadlock in the National Diet) and became prime minister again.

List of representatives

Election results

References

{{coord missing, Yamaguchi Prefecture Former districts of the House of Representatives (Japan) 1996 establishments in Japan Constituencies established in 1996 Shinzo Abe House of Representatives (Japan) districts in Yamaguchi Prefecture 2022 disestablishments in Japan Constituencies disestablished in 2022