Former Japanese government entity
For the modern day prefecture, see
Tokyo
.
Tokyo Prefecture
(
東京府
,
T?ky?-fu
)
was a Japanese government entity that existed between 1868 and 1943.
[1]
History
[
edit
]
When the prefecture was established with the merger of the two
shogunate city administrations
in the
Meiji restoration
in 1868, Tokyo initially consisted only of the former city area of the shogunate capital
Edo
. Beginning in 1871, the territory of Tokyo was expanded beyond Edo in several steps to reach roughly its present extent with the
Tama transfer
in 1893. The surrounding
former shogunate domain
(incl. hatamoto fiefs) in Musashi province was initially administered by Musashi governors, but then split up between the prefectures
Shinagawa
,
Kosuge
and
?miya/Urawa
. In 1871/72, the surrounding rural areas from these three prefectures and the Setagaya exclave of
Hikone ex-domain/prefecture
were merged into Tokyo.
The "system of large and small/major and minor districts" (大?小?制,
daiku-sh?ku-sei
) which was tied to the modernized family registration system
(
koseki
)
created an (unpopular) subdivision of all prefectures into numbered subunits.
Tokyo's administrative structure between
1871/72
and 1878
(not substantially different from other prefectures)
Level of government
(executive, legislature)
|
Organization in Tokyo
|
Empire
(appointed
council
,
no assembly)
|
Home Ministry
|
Prefecture
(appointed
governor
,
no assembly)
|
T?ky?-fu
("Tokyo Prefecture")
|
|
[numbered] large/major districts
(daiku)
& small/minor districts
(sh?ku)
|
In 1878, the ancient ritsury? districts were reactivated as administrative units in rural areas, and the status of urban districts
(-ku)
was newly introduced for major cities. Under the
gunkuch?son-hensei-h?
(郡?町村編制法, "Law on the organization of -gun/-ku/-ch?/-son"), both urban and rural districts were further subdivided into urban and rural units (
-machi
and
-mura
, i.e. towns and villages in the countryside, but neighbourhood-sized units in larger settlements; for example, there were 13 -machi/-ch? and 93 -mura in
Ebara District
in the 1870s, including five (one "North", three "South", one "New") for
Shinagawa
alone; the >100 subdivisions of Ebara were merged into only 1 town and 18 villages in 1889, today there are only four special wards left in its former territory:
Shinagawa
,
Meguro
,
?ta
,
Setagaya
). Initially, Tokyo contained only six [rural] districts, but other rural areas were added to Tokyo later (Izu & Ogasawara islands 1878/80, the three Tama districts 1893).
Tokyo's administrative structure between
1878
and 1889
Empire
(appointed
cabinet
from 1885,
no assembly)
|
Home Ministry
|
Prefecture
(appointed governor,
elected
assembly
)
|
T?ky?-fu
("Tokyo Prefecture")
|
District
(appointed chief,
no
(gun)
/elected
(ku)
assembly)
|
15 [urban] districts (
-ku
)
|
6 [rural] districts (
-gun
)
|
Locality/[Proto-]Municipality
(with restrictions: elected chief,
elected
assembly
from 1880)
|
hundreds of urban and rural subdivisions/neighbourhoods, towns and villages (
-machi/-ch?
and
-mura
)
|
When the modern municipalities were introduced in 1889, Tokyo was subdivided into c. 80 municipalities: 1 city, a handful of towns, and dozens of villages. With the Tama transfer of 1893, the number of municipalities in Tokyo grew to over 170. By 1943, there were only 87 municipalities left: 3 cities, 18 towns and 66 villages (see the
List of mergers in Tokyo
).
Tokyo's administrative structure between
1889
and 1943 (not different from Osaka, Kyoto)
Empire
(appointed cabinet,
Imperial Diet
with two equal chambers:
one appointed
,
one elected
)
|
Home Ministry
|
Prefecture
(appointed governor &
"council"
,
elected assembly)
|
T?ky?-fu
("Tokyo Prefecture")
|
(District)
(appointed chief &
"council"
,
indirectly elected assembly)
|
T?ky?-shi
("
Tokyo City
")
(until 1898 without independent administration: pref. governor=city mayor)
|
0→2 other cities (
-shi
)
Hachi?ji 1917, Tachikawa 1940
|
6→9→8→3 Districts (
-gun
)
(until abolition in 1920s)
|
Subprefectures
(for island municipalities)
|
Municipality
(
mayor
appointed from assembly proposals + in cities:
"council"
from 1920s: indirectly elected mayor [& "council"],
elected assembly)
|
>80→>170→84 towns (
-machi
) and villages (
-mura
)
|
|
15→35
Wards
(
-ku
)
|
Even after the Tama transfer, Tokyo City remained the dominant part of Tokyo in terms of population and economic strength. That increased further during the progressing industrialization and the explosive growth of the city in the early 20th century, only temporarily set back by the devastation brought about by the 1923 Great Kant? earthquake. The outskirts grew, but eventually Tokyo City's dominance within Tokyo only increased again as many of the explosively grown suburbs were merged into Tokyo City in 1932, including some of the largest
towns
in Japanese history with over 100,000 inhabitants each such as
Nishisugamo
[
ja
]
in
Kitatoshima District
[
ja
]
and
Shibuya
[
ja
]
in
Toyotama District
[
ja
]
.
Various plans for a unification of the prefectural and city government were discussed over the decades. An early proposal in the 1890s by then Home Minister
Nomura Yasushi
envisioned to separate the rural areas of Tokyo as Musashi prefecture and transform only Tokyo City into a "Metropolis", but it failed in the Imperial Diet. Some plans, especially those by the commoner political parties and during the "Taish? democracy" of the 1920s, envisioned a "Metropolis" more similar to a
special city
: an enlarged, prefecture-level city with
more
local autonomy. While the city did gain some additional authority under the 1922 "six major cities law" (more formally: 六大都市行政監督ニ?スル法律,
roku-daitoshi gy?sei kantoku ni kan suru h?ritsu
, "Law relating to the administrative supervision of the six major cities"), and the governments made plans for a "Metropolis" system ? the 1932 "Greater Tokyo City" mergers had been part of a Metropolis plan from the Tokyo City Assembly ?, the actual reform was carried out later as part of the T?j? cabinet's wartime authoritarian centralization measures (or "simplification of local government"). Not only was the Home Ministry control over prefectures and municipalities tightened as in the whole country ? municipal mayors became appointive similar to the Meiji era ?; Tokyo's prefectural government and Tokyo City's municipal government were indeed unified into one "Metropolitan" government, but under still tighter central government supervision.
Thus, in 1943, 86 of Tokyo's 87 municipalities remained Tokyo's municipalities,
Tokyo City
was abolished, all municipalities and the 35 ex-city wards were now part of
Tokyo Metropolis
(
東京都
,
T?ky?-to
)
which continues to serve as prefectural government for all of Tokyo, but now additionally as the municipal government in former Tokyo City. The governor of Tokyo, previously
chiji
as in all prefectures, was now called
ch?kan
("head/chief" [often of a central government agency]) and tied even more closely to the Imperial government than the governors of other prefectures. He became a
shinninkan
(親任官), meaning he was appointed directly by the Emperor,
in the same procedure
as a member of the Cabinet, the governors of Ch?sen/Korea or Taiwan/Formosa, or an Army General or Navy Admiral.
Tokyo's wartime administrative structure from
1943
(unique)
Empire
(appointed cabinet,
bicameral appointed/elected Diet)
|
Emperor/Cabinet/Home Ministry
|
Prefecture
(appointed governor,
elected assembly)
|
T?ky?-to
("Tokyo Metropolis")
|
Municipality
(appointed mayor,
elected assembly)
|
|
2 cities (
-shi
)
|
84 towns (
-machi
) and villages (
-mura
)
|
|
35
wards
(
-ku
)
|
The "Metropolis" is not to be confused with the
Tokyo metropolitan area
which extends into prefectures other than Tokyo and, depending on definition, may or may not include all of the "Metropolis".
In 1944/45, the establishment of regional bureaus created new parallel local administrative structures, lacking even the limited control by elected assemblies that prefectures and municipalities featured. And on the local level, the pre-existing neighbourhood associations (see
ch?naikai
and
Tonarigumi
) had been tied into the totalitarian Yokusankai vision and were endowed with far-reaching authority to establish an authoritarian system of control reaching down even to individual citizens. But the war tide had turned, and soon, the occupation under Douglas MacArthur overturned the wartime centralization, and beyond that, introduced new far-reaching local autonomy rights for prefectures, municipalities and even citizens in the form of "direct demands" (
chokusetsu seiky?
: recalls, popular initiative referendums for prefectural/municipal by-laws [excluding taxation], petitions, etc.).
The title
ch?kan
for the governor actually remained in place until 1947 when the
Constitution
and the
Local Autonomy Law
made Tokyo equal with other prefectures again and gave the residents of former Tokyo City (almost) the same rights as in other municipalities with the introduction of
special wards
. The
first gubernatorial election
[
ja
]
, held in April 1947 as part of the
1st unified elections
[
ja
]
, was still held as
T?ky?-to ch?kan senkyo
, and the first elected governor (who had also been the penultimate appointed governor from 1946 to 1947) initially still took office as
ch?kan
, but became
chiji
in May 1947.
[1]
References
[
edit
]
Further reading
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
- Historical Development of Japanese Local Governance
, Parts 1?4
- National Archives of Japan:
?貌?江?から帝都そして首都へ?
(
henb? ? Edo kara teito soshite shuto e ?
, "Transfiguration: From Edo to Imperial capital, then to [state/national] capital"; Japanese, includes some maps showing the territorial expansion 1868?1893 and the establishment of subdivisions of Tokyo)
35°41′N
139°46′E
/
35.68°N 139.77°E
/
35.68; 139.77