List of villages in Japan
A village (村, mura)[lower-alpha 1] is a local administrative unit in Japan.
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It is a local public body along with prefecture (県, ken, or other equivalents), city (市, shi), and town (町, chō, sometimes machi). Geographically, a village's extent is contained within a prefecture.
It is larger than an actual settlement, being in actuality a subdivision of a rural district (郡, gun), which are subdivided into towns and villages with no overlap and no uncovered area.
As a result of mergers and elevation to higher statuses, the number of villages in Japan is decreasing.
As of 2006, 13 prefectures no longer have any villages: Tochigi (since March 20, 2006), Fukui (since March 3, 2006), Ishikawa (since March 1, 2005), Shizuoka (since July 1, 2005), Hyōgo (since April 1, 1999), Mie (since November 1, 2005), Shiga (since January 1, 2005), Hiroshima (since November 5, 2004), Yamaguchi (since March 20, 2006), Ehime (since January 16, 2005), Kagawa (since April 1, 1999), Nagasaki (since October 1, 2005), and Saga (since March 20, 2006).
Atarashiki-mura (which is an autonomous village community) is not included in the list below.
Villages
Villages in the Northern Territories
The following is a list of disputed villages in the southern Kuril Islands. The territories are de facto Russian but are claimed by Japan as part of Nemuro Subprefecture, Hokkaido.
| Name | Japanese | Russian | Area (in km2) | Island |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rubetsu (Pioner) | 留別村 | Рубэцу | 1,442.82 | Etorofu (Iturup) |
| Ruyobetsu (Yuzhno-Kurilsk) | 留夜別村 | Ю́жно-Кури́льск | 960.27 | Kunashiri (Kunashir) |
| Shana (Kurilsk) | 紗那村 | Кури́льск | 973.3 | Etorofu (Iturup) |
| Shibetoro (Rudnaya) | 蘂取村 | 760.5 | Etorofu (Iturup) | |
| Shikotan | 色丹村 | Шикотан | 253.33 | Shikotan |
| Tomari (Golovnino) | 泊村 | Головнино | 538.56 | Kunashiri (Kunashir) |
Notes
- As a standalone word, 村 is pronounced with the kun'yomi mura. As a bound morpheme, it also has the on'yomi son, for example in the compounds shichōson (市町村, "cities, towns and villages") and sonchō (村長, "village mayor"). As a suffix in village names, it can be either -mura or -son; -son is rather common for villages in Okinawa (check the list below).