Merger and dissolution of municipalities of Japan (市町村合併; Shi-cho-son-gappei) takes place after one or more than one municipality reach consensus to do so.

March 31, 2005 was the deadline set by the revised municipality merger promotion law. The law was revised to streamline debt-ridden local governments and to create larger municipalities so more administrative power could be transferred to the local level.

On April 1, 2005, Japan had a total of 2,190 local governments. By March 31, 2006, this will further decrease to about 1,822, more than 40 percent less than the number of municipalities in 1999.

List of dissolved municipalities of Japan shows mergers and dissolutions of municipalities that took place in recent years.

Background

Most of Japan's rural municipalities largely depend on subsidies from the central government. However, they are often criticized for spending money for wasteful public enterprises to keep their employment. The central government, which also suffers financial difficulty, wishes to urge mergers and make the municipal system more efficient. Although the government purports to respect self-determination of the municipalities, some consider the policy to be virtually compulsory. As a result of mergers, some cities such as Daisen, Akita temporally have very large city assemblies. Daisen (大仙市, -shi) is a city located in Akita Prefecture, Japan. ...

Some people draw a blueprint of federalism (道州制 dōshūsei); they consider that the ultimate goal is to change Japan into a union consisting of more autonomous states. So far the mergers are limited to the local municipalities, but mergers of prefectures are also planned in some regions of Japan. Map of the prefectures of Japan in ISO 3166-2:JP order. ...

History

Japanese municipalities have repeated mergers in the modern history according with the changes of its society. The mergers around 2005 make the third peak of them. It is sometimes called "the great Heisei merger" (平成の大合併) for distinguishing it from the former two. Jump to: navigation, search 2005 (MMV) is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... History of Japan Paleolithic Jomon Yayoi Yamato period – Kofun period – Asuka period Nara period Heian period Kamakura period Muromachi period Azuchi-Momoyama period – Nanban contacts Edo period Meiji period Taisho period Showa period – Japanese expansionism – Occupied Japan – Post-Occupation Japan Heisei Heisei (平成) is the current era name in Japan. ...

The first peak of mergers, known as "the great Meiji merger" (明治の大合併), happened in 1889, when the modern municipal system was established. Until then, there were direct successors of spontaneous hamlets called hanseison (藩政村), or villages under the han system. Today they remains as postal units called ōaza (大字) in rural areas. Through the reformation, the total of the municipalities decreased from 71,314 to 15,859. History of Japan Paleolithic Jomon Yayoi Yamato period ---Kofun period ---Asuka period Nara period Heian period Kamakura period Muromachi period Azuchi-Momoyama period ---Nanban period Edo period Meiji period Taisho period Showa period ---Japanese expansionism ---Occupied Japan ---Post-Occupation Japan Heisei The Meiji period (Japanese: Meiji Jidai 明治時代 ) (1868–1912... Jump to: navigation, search 1889 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search Han (Japanese: è—©) were the fiefs of feudal clans of Japan that existed during all the Edo period and for a few years after the Meiji Restoration. ...

The second peak, called "the great Showa merger" (昭和の大合併), took place in mid-1950s. It reduced the number of the municipalities from 9,868 in October 1953 to 3,472 in June 1961. The Shōwa period (Japanese: 昭和時代, Shōwa-jidai, period of enlightened peace) was the time in Japanese history when Emperor Hirohito reigned over the country, from December 25, 1926 to January 7, 1989. ...

It is noted that the island of Hokkaido, as well as Okinawa, followed a different history. Hokkaido   listen? (北海道 Hokkaidō, literal meaning: North Sea Route, Ainu: Mosir), formerly known as Ezo, is the second largest island of Japan. ... Jump to: navigation, search Okinawa Prefecture (Japanese 沖縄県; Okinawan Uchinā) is Japans southernmost prefecture, and consists of hundreds of islands known as The RyÅ«kyÅ« Islands or RyÅ«kyÅ«s, in an island chain over 1,000 km long, which extends southwest from KyÅ«shÅ« (the southwesternmost of Japans...

Naming of new municipalities

Naming is not a negligible matter. Disagreement on a name sometimes brings the match to break up.

If a city is far larger than other towns which join in it, no arguments take place; the city's name simply survives. However, if their sizes have no much differences, lengthy disputes begin. Sometimes the problem can be solved by adopting their district's name. Another easy solution is simple compounding of their names, but this method, relatively common in Europe, is unusual in Japan. Instead, the Japanese often abbreviate them. For example, Ōta (大田) ward of Tokyo is a portmanteau of Ōmori (大森) and Kamata (蒲田). Toyoshina, Nagano is an extreme example. It is an acronym of the four antecedent villages: Toba, Yoshino, Shinden, and Nariai. A district (郡; gun) was the administrative unit during the period from 1890 to 1923, which is roughly equivalent to the county of the United States, and was ranked at the level below prefecture and above city, town or village. ... ÅŒta (Japanese: 大田区; -ku) is a special ward located in Tokyo, Japan. ... Jump to: navigation, search A portmanteau (plural: portmanteaux) is a word that is formed by combining both sounds and meanings from two or more words. ... Toyoshina (豊科町; -machi) is a town located in Minamiazumi District, Nagano, Japan. ... Acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations formed from the initial letter or letters of words, such as NATO and XHTML, and are pronounced in a way that is distinct from the full pronunciation of what the letters stand for. ...

Another common way is borrowing a surrounding famous placename plus direction, like Kita-kyushu 'north Kyushu', Higashi-osaka 'east Osaka', and Shikoku-chuo 'central Shikoku'. Nishi-tokyo 'west Tokyo' sounds strange for some Japanese, because Tokyo itself means 'east capital'. Other towns pick up ordinary nouns with good connotations, such as peace, green, or prosperity. Jump to: navigation, search Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Kitakyushu, Fukuoka KitakyÅ«shÅ« (北九州市; KitakyÅ«shÅ«-shi), literally north KyÅ«shÅ«, is a city located in Fukuoka prefecture, Japan of about one million people, though it has steadily decreased in recent years. ... Higashiōsaka (東大阪市; -shi, East Osaka) is a city located in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. ... Jump to: navigation, search Shikokuchūō (四国中央市; -shi) is a city located in Ehime, Japan. ... Nishitōkyō (西東京市; -shi) is a city located in Tokyo, Japan. ...

A characteristic of the Heisei mergers is a rapid increase of hiragana names. The names of Japan's cities used to be written in Kanji exclusively. The first instance of 'hiragana municipalities' was Mutsu, Aomori (むつ) renamed in 1960, and their number will reach to 45 in April 2006. They include Tsukuba (つくば), Kahoku (かほく), Sanuki (さぬき), and a metropolis Saitama (さいたま). Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Romaji ローマ字 Category Hiragana (平仮名 literally smooth kana) are a Japanese syllabary, one of four Japanese writing systems (the others are katakana, kanji and rōmaji). ... Jump to: navigation, search Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Romaji ローマ字 Category Kanji (漢字 â–¶(?), literally Han characters) is the name of Chinese characters in the Japanese language. ... Mutsu (むつ市; -shi) is a city located in Aomori in Tohoku region of Japan. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1960 was a leap year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Tsukuba (Japanese: つくば市 -shi or 筑波市 -shi; both written forms are commonly used) is a planned city located in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. ... Kahoku (かほく市; -shi) is a city in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. ... Sanuki (さぬき市; -shi) is a city located in Kagawa, Japan. ... Saitama (Japanese: さいたま市; -shi) is the capital and the most populous city of Saitama Prefecture in Japan. ...

Critics lament these phenomena, presuming them as loss of intangible cultural assets.