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37-654: Kōtō ( 江東区 , Kōtō-ku ) is a special ward in the Tokyo Metropolis in Japan . The ward refers to itself as Kōtō City in English. As of May 1, 2015, the ward has an estimated population of 488,632, and a population density of 12,170 persons per km. The total area is approximately 40.16 km. Kōtō is located east of the Tokyo metropolitan center, bounded by the Sumida River to

74-428: A sister city of Surrey, British Columbia , Canada. Special wards of Tokyo Although the autonomy law today allows for special wards to be established in other prefectures, to date they exist only in Tokyo , which consists of 23 special wards and 39 other, ordinary municipalities ( cities , towns , and villages ). The special wards of Tokyo occupy the land that was Tokyo City in its 1936 borders before it

111-602: A local government. These other municipalities are located in the western part of the prefecture, as well as the outlying island chains of Izu and Ogasawara . The Metropolitan Assembly is the legislative organ of the whole prefecture of Tokyo . It consists of 127 members elected each four years. Regular sessions are held four times each year, in February, June, September and December. These sessions typically last for 30 days. Between these are plenary sessions where discussions on bills are held. As in other prefectures of Japan ,

148-413: A new 2012 law, – sometimes informally called "Osaka Metropolis plan law", but not specifically referring to Osaka – major cities and their surrounding municipalities in prefectures other than Tokyo may be replaced with special wards with similar functions if approved by the involved municipal and prefectural governments and ultimately the citizens of the dissolving municipalities in a referendum. Prerequisite

185-405: Is a population of at least 2 million in the dissolving municipalities; three cities (Yokohama, Nagoya and Osaka) meet this requirement on their own, seven other major city areas can set up special wards if a designated city is joined by neighboring municipalities. However, prefectures ( 道府県 , -dō/-fu/-ken ) where special wards are set up cannot style themselves metropolis ( 都 , -to ) as

222-950: Is in Koto. Seta Corporation was headquartered in Kōtō. The main city office for Kōtō City is located in Toyo. There are branch offices located in Shirakawa, Tomioka, Toyosu , Komatsubashi, Kameido, Ojima, Sunamachi and Minamisuna. Public high schools are operated by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Board of Education . Public elementary and middle schools are operated by the Koto City Board of Education. Combined junior and senior high schools: Junior high schools: Elementary schools: Private schools: International schools are independently owned and operated. On April 20, 1989, Kōtō became

259-521: Is similar between the Federal District and its 35 administrative regions in Brazil . To finance the joint public services it provides to the 23 wards, the metropolitan government levies some of the taxes that would normally be levied by city governments, and also makes transfer payments to wards that cannot finance their own local administration. Waste disposal is handled by each ward under direction of

296-542: Is the government of the Tokyo Metropolis . One of the 47 prefectures of Japan , the government consists of a popularly elected governor and assembly. The headquarters building is located in the ward of Shinjuku . The metropolitan government administers the special wards , cities, towns and villages that constitute part of the Tokyo Metropolis. With a population closing in on 14 million living within its boundaries, and many more commuting from neighbouring prefectures,

333-559: The 1923 Great Kantō earthquake , and was heavily bombed during World War II . The special ward was founded on March 15, 1947, by the merger of the wards of Fukagawa and Jōtō. There are 45 districts in Koto: Companies with headquarters in Koto include Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores , Ibex Airlines , Fujikura , and Maruha Nichiro . Sony operates the Ariake Business Center in Kōtō. The broadcasting center of WOWOW

370-451: The 23 wards ( 23区 , nijūsan-ku ) or just Tokyo ( 東京 , Tōkyō ) if the context makes obvious that this does not refer to the whole prefecture. Today, all wards refer to themselves as a city in English, but the Japanese designation of special ward ( tokubetsu-ku ) remains unchanged. They are a group of 23 municipalities; there is no associated single government body separate from

407-596: The Constitution of Japan . This means that they had no constitutional right to pass their own legislation, or to hold direct elections for mayors and councilors. While these authorities were granted by statute during the US-led occupation and again in 1975, they could be unilaterally revoked by the National Diet ; similar measures against other municipalities would require a constitutional amendment. The denial of elected mayors to

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444-588: The Liberal Democratic Party , Kōmeitō and Japan Restoration Party , won roughly two-thirds of the vote in the 2012 Tokyo gubernatorial election . Inose resigned in December 2013 and his successor Yoichi Masuzoe was elected in the 2014 Tokyo gubernatorial election . Masuzoe resigned in June 2016 and a new election was held on 31 July 2016. Yuriko Koike , former LDP defense minister but running as an independent,

481-783: The Local Autonomy Law only allows Tokyo with that status. In Osaka , a 2015 referendum to replace the city with five special wards was defeated narrowly. Many important districts are located in Tokyo's special wards: Tokyo Metropolitan Government Naruhito [REDACTED] Fumihito [REDACTED] Shigeru Ishiba ( LDP ) Second Ishiba Cabinet ( LDP – Komeito coalition ) [REDACTED] [REDACTED] Fukushiro Nukaga Kōichirō Genba [REDACTED] Masakazu Sekiguchi Hiroyuki Nagahama Saburo Tokura Kazuo Ueda The Tokyo Metropolitan Government ( 東京都庁 , Tōkyōto-chō )

518-438: The National Diet designated the special wards as local public entities ( 地方公共団体 , chihō kōkyō dantai ) , giving them a legal status similar to cities. The wards vary greatly in area (from 10 to 60 km ) and population (from less than 40,000 to 830,000), and some are expanding as artificial islands are built. Setagaya has the most people, while neighboring Ōta has the largest area. The total population census of

555-567: The Tokyo Metropolitan Government , which governs all 62 municipalities of Tokyo, not just the special wards. Analogues exist in historic and contemporary Chinese and Korean administration: "Special wards" are city-independent wards, analogously, " special cities /special cities" (teukbyeol-si/tokubetsu-shi) are province-/prefecture-independent cities and were intended to be introduced under SCAP in Japan, too; but in Japan, implementation

592-401: The 23 special wards had fallen under 8 million as the postwar economic boom moved people out to suburbs, and then rose as Japan's lengthy stagnation took its toll and property values drastically changed, making residential inner areas up to 10 times less costly than during peak values. Its population was 8,949,447 as of October 1, 2010, about two-thirds of the population of Tokyo and a quarter of

629-411: The administrative wards of cities (that unlike Tokyo City retained their elected mayors and assemblies) but still less than other municipalities in Tokyo or the rest of the country, making them less independent than cities, towns or villages, but more independent than city subdivisions. Today, each special ward has its own elected mayor ( 区長 , kuchō ) and assembly ( 区議会 , kugikai ) . In 2000,

666-510: The current city area. On March 15, 1943, as part of wartime totalitarian tightening of controls, Tokyo's local autonomy (elected council and mayor) under the Imperial municipal code was eliminated by the Tōjō cabinet and the Tokyo city government and ( Home ministry appointed) prefectural government merged into a single (appointed) prefectural government; the wards were placed under the direct control of

703-699: The early elections for the Metropolitan Assembly in 1965 due to a corruption scandal, Tokyo became the first prefecture not to hold its assembly elections during the unified local elections ( tōitsu chihō senkyo ), which typically take place in prefectures and municipalities throughout the country every four years. By 2011 , it was one of six prefectures not to do so, the others being Iwate , Miyagi , Fukushima , Ibaraki and Okinawa . Following Shintarō Ishihara's resignation in October 2012, Tokyo held an early gubernatorial election in December 2012 and completely left

740-484: The greatest influence among Japan's governors. In contrast to other prefectures, the governor of Tokyo has a relatively important role given the size of Tokyo's budget (13 trillion yen as of 2014, which is roughly equivalent to the government budget of Sweden ) . The Tokyo metropolitan government is also granted relative freedom in how it allocates the budget, as it is not subject to national government subsidies which other prefectures receive. The responsibility for approving

777-807: The metropolitan budget lies with the governor and the assembly. The assembly may vote for no confidence in the governor and the governor may order the assembly to be dissolved. Karasumaru Mitsue served as the first prefectural governor of Edo Prefecture in 1868. Several months later, the prefecture was renamed to Tokyo and Karasumaru's tenure continued. From the Japanese Misplaced Pages Tokyo's population consists largely of swing voters who are not loyal to any one political party. Tokyoites tend to vote for independent candidates with name recognition or in response to hot-button issues , and have been less susceptible to pork-barrel spending and other "machine" style politics than voters elsewhere in Japan. With

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814-574: The metropolitan government wields significant political power within Japan. Under Japanese law , Tokyo is designated as a to ( 都 ), translated as metropolis . Within Tokyo Metropolis lie dozens of smaller entities, including twenty-three special wards (特別 区 -ku) which until 1943 made up Tokyo City but which now have individual local governments, each with a leader and a council. In addition to these 23 local governments, Tokyo also encompasses 26 cities ( 市 -shi), five towns ( 町 -chō or machi), and eight villages ( 村 -son or -mura), each of which has

851-514: The metropolitan government. For example, plastics were generally handled as non-burnable waste until the metropolitan government announced a plan to halt burying of plastic waste by 2010; as a result, about half of the special wards now treat plastics as burnable waste, while the other half mandate recycling of either all or some plastics. Unlike other municipalities (including the municipalities of western Tokyo ), special wards were initially not considered to be local public entities for purposes of

888-484: The people of Tokyo directly elect the governor to four-year terms of office. There is no limit to the number of terms a person may serve. Unlike collegiate cabinet systems, where the decisions are made unanimously, the Governor has the authority to make policy decisions and enforce policy. As the chief executive of Tokyo, ruling an area encompassing 13 million inhabitants and a GDP comparable in size to some countries, they hold

925-500: The population of the Greater Tokyo Area . As of December 2012, the population passed 9 million; the 23 wards have a population density of 14,485 people/km (37,520 people/sq mi). The Mori Memorial Foundation put forth a proposal in 1999 to consolidate the 23 wards into six larger cities for efficiency purposes, and an agreement was reached between the metropolitan and special ward governments in 2006 to consider realignment of

962-431: The prefecture. The 35 wards of the former city were integrated into 22 on March 15, 1947, just before the legal definition of special wards was given by the Local Autonomy Law , enforced on May 3 the same year. The 23rd ward, Nerima, was formed on August 1, 1947, when Itabashi was split again. The postwar reorganization under the US-led occupation authorities democratized the prefectural administrations but did not include

999-478: The reinstitution of Tokyo City. Seiichirō Yasui , a former Home Ministry bureaucrat and appointed governor, won the first Tokyo gubernatorial election against Daikichirō Tagawa, a former Christian Socialist member of the Imperial Diet, former vice mayor of Tokyo city and advocate of Tokyo city's local autonomy. Since the 1970s, the special wards of Tokyo have exercised a considerably higher degree of autonomy than

1036-465: The same way as Tokyo City, making the boroughs top-level divisions of England or New York state. Although special wards are autonomous from the Tokyo metropolitan government, they also function as a single urban entity in respect to certain public services, including water supply, sewage disposal, and fire services. These services are handled by the Tokyo metropolitan government, whereas cities would normally provide these services themselves. This situation

1073-766: The special wards was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in the 1963 decision Japan v. Kobayashi et al. (also known as Tokyo Ward Autonomy Case). In 1998, the National Diet passed a revision of the Local Autonomy Law (effective in the year 2000) that implemented the conclusions of the Final Report on the Tokyo Ward System Reform increasing their fiscal autonomy and established the wards as basic local public entities. The word "special" distinguishes them from

1110-547: The unified election cycle. The four largest established national political parties of the past decade (Liberal Democrats, Democrats, Kōmeitō, Communists) are represented in the Tokyo Assembly. The Social Democratic Party , formerly the Japanese Socialist Party, which had been the second major party for much of the postwar era, lost its one remaining seat in the 2001 election . Governor Naoki Inose , endorsed by

1147-505: The wards ( 区 , ku ) of other major Japanese cities. Before 1943, the wards of Tokyo City were no different from the wards of Osaka or Kyoto . These original wards numbered 15 in 1889. Large areas from five surrounding districts were merged into the city in 1932 and organized in 20 new wards, bringing the total to 35; the expanded city was also referred to as "Greater Tokyo" ( 大東京 , Dai-Tōkyō ) . By this merger, together with smaller ones in 1920 and 1936, Tokyo City came to expand to

Kōtō - Misplaced Pages Continue

1184-552: The wards of Chūō and Edogawa . To the North, its inland boundary is with the Sumida special ward. Much of the land is reclaimed, The northern part is old reclaimed land, and the elevation is very low (below sea level). The southern part is relatively new, but there are few old temples or shrines . Noteworthy places in Kōtō include: The western part of the ward was formerly part of Fukagawa Ward of Tokyo City . It suffered severe damage in

1221-464: The wards, but there has been minimal further movement to change the current special ward system. Special wards do not currently exist outside Tokyo; however, several Osaka area politicians, led by Governor Tōru Hashimoto , are backing an Osaka Metropolis plan under which the city of Osaka would be replaced by special wards, consolidating many government functions at the prefectural level and devolving other functions to more localized governments. Under

1258-528: The west and the Arakawa River to the east. Its major districts include Kameido, Kiba, Kiyosumi, Monzen-nakachō, Shirakawa, and Toyosu . The waterfront area of Ariake is in Kōtō, as is part of Odaiba . "Kōtō" (江東) means "East [of the] River" in Japanese. The tō (東) in Kōtō means "East" and is the same character as the Tō in Tokyo (東京). Kōtō occupies a position on the waterfront of Tokyo Bay sandwiched between

1295-679: Was abolished under the Tōjō Cabinet in 1943 to become directly ruled by the prefectural government , then renamed to "Metropolitan". During the Occupation of Japan , municipal autonomy was restored to former Tokyo City by the establishment of special wards, each with directly elected mayor and assembly, as in any other city, town or village in Tokyo and the rest of the country. In Japanese, they are collectively also known as "Wards area of Tokyo Metropolis" ( 東京都区部 , Tōkyō-to kubu ) , "former Tokyo City" ( 旧東京市 , kyū-Tōkyō-shi ) , or less formally

1332-460: Was elected with 44,49% of the popular vote. The last assembly election was held on July 27. The new party of the governor Yuriko Koike ( Tomin First no Kai ) won 49 seats with 33.68% of the vote. The LDP obtained 23 seats with 22.53% of the vote. The New Komeito Party , allied with Gov. Koike also obtained 23 seats, with 13.13% of the vote. The previous election was held in June 2013. The LDP won 36% of

1369-531: Was stalled, and in 1956 special cities were replaced in the Local Autonomy Law with designated major cities which gain additional autonomy, but remain part of prefectures. In everyday English, Tokyo as a whole is also referred to as a city even though it contains 62 cities, towns, villages and special wards. The closest English equivalents for the special wards would be the London boroughs or New York City boroughs if Greater London and New York City had been abolished in

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