Japanese addressing system

The system of postal addresses in Japan (Japanese住所, Jūsho ) is not based on street and house number, but on administrative units and is derived from the historical divisions for the taxation of self-government areas.

• 3.1 Kyoto
• 3.2 Hokkaidō Prefecture
• 3.3 Ishikawa Prefecture
• 3.4 Iwate Prefecture

Construction

The addresses include the following components in size in descending order with the respective appended category labels:

• Postal Code, Prefecture都 / to ,道/ dō ,府/ fu or県/ ken
• City 市/ or shi Tokyo District区 / ku or County 郡/ gun
• Municipality 区/ ku (only in shi)
• District町/ chō or district town町 / machi / chō or village村 / mura / son
• Number of the district section丁目 / chome ( in shi chō and machi )
• Number of blocks 番/ ban or a parcel number番地/ banchi (or short :番/ ban )
• Number of the building 号/ gō or number of the sub- plot
• Building Name ( discretion )
• Where appropriate apartment number 号/ gō or room number 号 室/ gōshitsu
• People Name 様( polite form of address )

Japanese zip codes (邮 便 番号, Yubin - bango ) are seven-, with a hyphen between the third and fourth digit. The sign for the Japanese Mail ( 〒 ) is often prefixed to forms.

A town or a district may in大字( oaza ) and these in turn in小字( koaza ), in short:字( aza ), be divided. In contrast to other identifiers, this stand before the signified, however, are often omitted.

In some cities, city sections are numbered not chome, but with the Iroha system in katakana 部/ bu ( in Ishikawa Prefecture ), or with sky strains ( eg in Tosa ).

The City Part chō (丁) of -chome (丁目) is still an administrative unit of meaning dar. Each chō elects around 100 residents of an elder who feels responsible for his portion, and run through the appropriate contacts.

If the address for international programs in Latin characters ( Japanese: romaji ) written recommends the Japanese post office, the order of the components in the reverse, ie international customary order to use. The state information is recorded in a further address the subsequent line.

House numbering

In Japan, there are two systems to address within a neighborhood: by parcel and by building blocks.

Parcel System

The plots system dates back to the Meiji period. Has its origins in the 1871 it introduced for the purpose of taxation chiken seido (地 券 制度, dt as: " Basic Certificate System"), in which each plot also received a code and was therefore addressed. 1886 was the implementation of a " land registration system " (不动产 登记 制度, Fudosan Toki seido ). 1898 was the revision of the " Civil Status Act " (戸 籍 法, koseki - hō ) first used the term banchi for addressing the main residence (本籍, honseki ).

In the plots, the system plots (番地, banchi shortly also:番, ban ) numbered of a neighborhood. If the parcel is divided, another consecutive number is it hung, formerly often separated even with aの. The addresses 123番地 の1, 123番地1 and 123番1 are therefore equivalent and refer to the first part of the plot of the 123 plot. If this parcel have n sub- plots and a will of it split into m, no further number would be at the existing sub- plot number hanged, but would continue to be counted with new sub- plots, so it'll n m - 1 partial plots are as shown in the following graphic shown:

Plots the system has several disadvantages. For one, it is similar to where houses, with the same disadvantage that the number of partial plot and thus the address of a building depends on their transaction and is not so hard to find on their position a specific address. On the other hand can on a part- plot several buildings stand, which then all have the same address.

Building block system

Therefore, in May 1962 the "Law on the apartment information " (住居表示に関する法律, ni kan suru Jukyo hyōji hōritsu ) introduced a new system. A district is then divided into building blocks (番, ban ), which are separated either by road or by natural barriers such as rivers each other. Within this building block in a clockwise direction at fixed intervals (eg 10 m ) is then assigned a number (号, gō ). A building whose entrance is on this number, this is assigned, see the following graph with four buildings in a block and their house numbers:

This building block system can more efficiently find a requested address when after the parcel system, since the order of house numbers now directly depends on position of the building and the street number of the next house in a clockwise direction is always greater and that of the previous always smaller. A peculiarity of the system is that gaps in the number sequence arise. In addition, two buildings whose outputs are in the same section, get the same house number.

The numbers within the district or the rural community are predominantly specified, separated from one another without category features, and only by a hyphen, ie instead of 1丁目番地2 3 or 1 2番3号丁目is often simply written only 1-2-3.

Examples

A letter, for example, to the President of Japan Post in Tōkyō had each written in kanji, romaji romanization and customary international notation following address specification ( category details in bold).

In the special case Tōkyō is given within the 23- ku area not a city:

An address in the country could look like this:

Local features

Kyoto

There are very numerous and very small parts of the city, which also are still some multiple times within a city district in Kyoto. Therefore has yet naturalized a second addition to the official address system, which is also recognized by the post office.

This system is based on that additional intersections are used as reference points and then specify whether the destination is north (上ルagaru, , literally: "upward" ), south (下ル, sagaru, literally " down ") east (東入ル, higashi - iru ) or west (西入ル, nishi - iru ) is of them. Depending on the reference point, a place so have different addresses.

The official address of the Kyoto Tower is:

On his website, but it is given as:

, referring to the south Karasuma- Shichijō - intersection.

With less distinctive buildings in addition the official address is still attached.

Hokkaidō Prefecture

In Hokkaido the city core is divided into quadrants in some large cities. Addressing is done here in the indication of the distance of these quadrants to the town center along a north -south and an east -west axis in the form ○ 条×丁目. For the north-south indication is chome as a suffix jo (条) and for the east-west indication is used, the order in its meaning from other communities in Japan is different.

The address of the town hall of Sapporo is

And thus represents the first house in the first block in the first quadrant north and second quadrant west of downtown in the borough of Chūō -ku Sapporo.

Ishikawa Prefecture

In some municipalities of Ishikawa Prefecture, the city sections are numbered not in Arabic numerals, but with katakana according to the Iroha order and bu (部) as an optional category specification.

The address of the City Council of Nomi is:

And is thus part of the city portion of the district Terai -machi Nomi for the 35th land in the 16th (ta).

Iwate Prefecture

In some municipalities of Iwate Prefecture, the city parts oaza or aza are not named, but numbered in the form第 ○ 地 割, where第dai is a Ordinalzahlpräfix and地 割chiwari means a parcel.

The address of the City Council of Fudai is:

And thus represents the second house in the 13th block in the sub- district of the 9th doya hamlet ( oaza ) of Fudai district Shimohei.

If the numbering refers to an aza, it corresponds to the chome in other areas of Japan and is written in the corresponding short form. An example of this is the address of the City Council of Karumai:

The 10 here is a short form of第10地 割dai -10 - chiwari.