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 the Local Autonomy Law of 1947. Generally, a village or town can be promoted to a city when its population increases above fifty thousand, and a city can (but need not) be demoted to a town or village when its population decreases below fifty thousand. The least-populated city, Utashinai, Hokkaido, has population of mere six thousand, while a town in the same prefecture, Otofuke, Hokkaido, has nearly forty thousand. Larger cities of at least 200,000 inhabitants can achieve one of three special statuses: special city, core city, or “designated” city. Most people outside Japan think of Tokyo, Japan’s capital, as a city, but under Japanese law it is a special subregional administrative unit called a to (都?) that has prefectural authority (and is therefore counted as one of the country’s 47 prefectures). Its official name is Tokyo Metropolis (and that of its government, Tokyo Metropolitan Government), and it has incorporated cities within its jurisdiction. See List of cities in Japan and List of cities in Japan by population for complete lists.
