Wards of Japan
A Ku (Japanese区), often translated as a municipality, an administrative unit in some large cities in Japan, the English Borough ( roughly " community, district " ) is comes close.
Ku form the subdivision of currently (April 1, 2009) 18 government- designated cities ( shitei toshi Seirei ) with more than 500,000 inhabitants. This shi often emerged only in the 20th century by administrative merger of several previously independent municipalities and cities that had grown together. The old communities continue to live with more or less large territorial adjustments in the Ku.
The Ku are local administrative units that are controlled directly by the local authority. You are management functions such as guiding the population register ( Koseki, ie civil functions), health insurance and property tax transfer. Many residents have their own Ku organizations that perform different tasks, but they have no powers of its own.
Historical ku
At the beginning of the Meiji period in 1871 was a " system of large districts and small districts " (大 区 小区 制, daiku - Shoku - be ) applied to the prefectures in " large areas " ( daiku ) and these in turn into small " districts " ( Shoku ) were divided.
With the 1878 adopted Gun -ku -chō -son Hensei - hō (郡 区 町 村 编制 法, " Law on the organization of counties, districts, towns and villages " ) were designated only urban areas than ku. Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka consisted of several such ku ( Tokyo from 15 districts, Osaka from Kita -ku, Higashi -ku, Minami -ku and Nishi- ku, Kyoto, and from Kamigyo -ku and Shimogyo -ku ). However, these towns had no municipal government but by the respective prefecture ( Tokyo - fu, Kyoto -fu and Osaka - fu) were ruled directly and were not independent administrative units. The following cities were also organized as ku Nagoya, Kanazawa, Hiroshima Prefecture, Wakayama, Yokohama, Sendai, Sakai, Fukuoka, Kumamoto, Kobe, Niigata, Okayama, Nagasaki, Hakodate, Fushimi, Akamagaseki ( Shimonoseki ) and Sapporo. With the introduction of modern municipal system to the April 1, 1889, these ku - with the exception of Fushimi in 1881 of ku - status has been revoked and the special case of Sapporo - converted to shi and shi Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka were created which subordinate their ku.
There were exceptions of Okinawa Prefecture and Hokkaido, where even large cities formed later were still referred to as ku: on Okinawa 1896-1921 Naha and Shuri and on Hokkaidō 1899-1922 Asahikawa, Hakodate, Kushiro, Muroran, Otaru and again Sapporo. These were then also to shi.
Former city wards of Tokyo
Even Tokyo was an independent city until 1943 and was in last 35 Ku divided (see city wards of Tokyo ). After the dissolution of the city of Tokyo districts remained and now stood directly the Tokyo Prefecture. In 1947 she received as tokubetsu -ku ("special districts "), a special form, the quasi gives them the status of independent communities, leaving them but still some tasks, such as water or fire department of the prefecture.
For the purposes of Article 93 of the Constitution, they have long been regarded as independent authorities: The fixed there right to choose their own local parliaments ( with legislative and control powers) and Mayor was instead granted to them by Parliament. The mayors were only up to 1952 and from 1975 directly elected. Only in 2000 were the Tokyo districts in a reform of the formal status as "special authorities " (特别 地方 公共 団 体, tokubetsu Chiho Kogyo dantai ), under the " Law on Local Self-Government " and thus as municipalities ( kiso - teki (na) Chiho Kogyo dantai, literally " basic authorities ": Shi, Machi, Mura) This was associated with a greater degree of financial autonomy, and they took over other municipal tasks, eg waste from the prefecture.
- Municipality in Japan
- Administrative divisions of Japan