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17-555: Tokyo City ( 東京市 , Tōkyō-shi ) was a municipality in Japan and capital of Tokyo Prefecture (or Tokyo-fu ) which existed from 1 May 1889 until the establishment of Tokyo Metropolis on 1 July 1943. The historical boundaries of Tokyo City are now occupied by the special wards of Tokyo . The defunct city and its prefecture became what is now Tokyo, also known as the Tokyo Metropolis or, ambiguously, Tokyo Prefecture. In 1868,

34-576: A population of three thousand, while a town in the same prefecture, Otofuke, Hokkaido , has over forty thousand. Under the Act on Special Provisions concerning Merger of Municipalities ( 市町村の合併の特例等に関する法律 , Act No. 59 of 2004) , the standard of 50,000 inhabitants for the city status has been eased to 30,000 if such population is gained as a result of a merger of towns and/or villages , in order to facilitate such mergers to reduce administrative costs. Many municipalities gained city status under this eased standard. On

51-501: A tributary of Ishikari River , flows through Utashinai. There is Mount Kamoi on the northwest of the city. The name is derived from the Ainu ota-us-nay ( オタウㇱナイ ) meaning "River connected to a sandy beach". As of December 31, 2020, the city had a population of 3,019, with 1,788 households , and a density of 62 persons per km . The total area of the city is 55.99 km . The population of Utashinai has been declining very rapidly for

68-536: A whole, e.g. today's Hiroshima City ( -shi ) was then Hiroshima-ku ; the three major cities of Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto were each subdivided into several such wards. In Tokyo Prefecture, this created 15 wards (listed below) and six counties/districts. In 1888, the central government created the legal framework for the current system of cities ( shi ) that granted some basic local autonomy rights – with some similarities to Prussia's system of local self-government as Meiji government advisor Albert Mosse heavily influenced

85-643: The Local Autonomy Law of 1947. Article 8 of the Local Autonomy Law sets the following conditions for a municipality to be designated as a city: The designation is approved by the prefectural governor and the Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications . A city can theoretically be demoted to a town or village when it fails to meet any of these conditions, but such a demotion has not happened to date. The least populous city, Utashinai, Hokkaido , has

102-627: The Swiss chalet style. A medium-sized ski hill, Kamoidake, attracts a decent crowd of locals and hosts frequent ski meets, while a hot spring resort called Tyrol, after the Austrian region , is known throughout Hokkaido for the quality of its water. However, despite these new projects, Utashinai continues to experience population decline and economic stagnation. The local high school closed in 2007, with students now traveling to Sunagawa, Akabira or Takikawa for their secondary education. Penkeutashunai River,

119-451: The "city code" ( shisei , 市制) of 1888 during the "Great Meiji mergers" ( Meiji no daigappei , 明治の大合併) of 1889. The -shi replaced the previous urban districts /"wards/cities" (-ku) that had existed as primary subdivisions of prefectures besides rural districts (-gun) since 1878. Initially, there were 39 cities in 1889: only one in most prefectures, two in a few (Yamagata, Toyama, Osaka, Hyōgo, Fukuoka), and none in some – Miyazaki became

136-682: The city of Edo , seat of the Tokugawa government, was renamed Tokyo, and the offices of Tokyo Prefecture ( -fu ) were opened. The extent of Tokyo Prefecture was initially limited to the former Edo city, but rapidly augmented to be comparable with the present Tokyo Metropolis. In 1878, the Meiji government's reorganization of local governments subdivided prefectures into counties or districts ( gun , further subdivided into towns and villages , later reorganized similar to Prussian districts ) and districts or wards ( ku ) which were in ordinary prefectures cities as

153-545: The current structure of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government was formed. Cities of Japan A city ( 市 , shi ) is a local administrative unit in Japan . Cities are ranked on the same level as towns ( 町 , machi ) and villages ( 村 , mura ) , with the difference that they are not a component of districts ( 郡 , gun ) . Like other contemporary administrative units, they are defined by

170-536: The government began to appoint a separate mayor of Tokyo City in 1898, but retained ward-level legislation, which continues to this day in the special ward system. From 1926, the mayor was elected by the elected city council/assembly from its own ranks. The city hall of Tokyo was located in the Yūrakuchō district, on a site now occupied by the Tokyo International Forum . Tokyo became the second-largest city in

187-584: The last prefecture to contain its first city in 1924. In Okinawa -ken and Hokkai-dō which were not yet fully equal prefectures in the Empire, major urban settlements remained organized as urban districts until the 1920s: Naha-ku and Shuri-ku, the two urban districts of Okinawa were only turned into Naha -shi and Shuri-shi in May 1921, and six -ku of Hokkaidō were converted into district-independent cities in August 1922. By 1945,

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204-446: The number of cities countrywide had increased to 205. After WWII , their number almost doubled during the "great Shōwa mergers" of the 1950s and continued to grow so that it surpassed the number of towns in the early 21st century (see the List of mergers and dissolutions of municipalities in Japan ). As of October 1 2018, there are 792 cities of Japan. Utashinai, Hokkaido Utashinai

221-439: The organization of local government. But under a special imperial regulation, Tokyo City, like Kyoto City and Osaka City, initially did not maintain a separate mayor; instead, the (appointed) governor of Tokyo Prefecture served as mayor of Tokyo City. The Tokyo city council /assembly ( Tōkyō-shikai ) was first elected in May 1889. Each ward also retained its own assembly. City and prefectural government were separated in 1898., and

238-448: The other hand, the municipalities recently gained the city status purely as a result of increase of population without expansion of area are limited to those listed in List of former towns or villages gained city status alone in Japan . The Cabinet of Japan can designate cities of at least 200,000 inhabitants to have the status of core city , or designated city . These statuses expand the scope of administrative authority delegated from

255-543: The prefectural government to the city government. Tokyo , Japan's capital, existed as a city until 1943, but is now legally classified as a special type of prefecture called a metropolis ( 都 , to ) . The 23 special wards of Tokyo , which constitute the core of the Tokyo metropolitan area, each have an administrative status analogous to that of cities. Tokyo also has several other incorporated cities, towns and villages within its jurisdiction. Cities were introduced under

272-565: The world (population 4.9 million) upon absorbing several outlying districts in July 1932, giving the city a total of 35 wards. In 1943, the city was abolished along with Tokyo Prefecture to form Tokyo Metropolis and Tokyo Metropolitan Government , which was functionally a part of the central government of Japan: the governor of Tokyo became a Cabinet minister reporting directly to the Prime Minister . This system remained in place until 1947 when

289-446: Was formerly a prosperous coal mining city, but its fortunes has declined greatly since the closing of the coal mines. The population peaked at 46,000 in 1948, and has been decreasing every year since. Efforts to transform Utashinai from a gritty coal mining town to an alpine tourist destination have met with mixed success. The town has adopted a Swiss theme as part of its tourist-oriented strategy and many new buildings are built in

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