Districts of Japan
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The district (郡 gun?) was most recently used as an administrative unit in Japan between 1878 and 1921 and is roughly equivalent to the county of the United States, ranking at the level below prefecture and above city, town or village[1]. Currently, cities belong directly to prefectures and are independent from districts, unlike cities in the United States, which usually belong to a county (excluding Virginia, which also has independent cities). Towns and villages do belong to districts, but the districts possess little to no administrative authority, much like the counties of Connecticut. They are used primarily in the Japanese addressing system and to identify the relevant geographical area and collection of nearby towns and villages. The district was initially called kōri and has ancient roots in Japan. Although the Nihon Shoki claims they were established during the Taika Reforms, kōri was originally written 評. It was not until the Taihō Penal and Civil Code that kōri came to be written 郡. Under the Taihō Penal and Civil Code, the administrative unit of province (国; kuni) was above district, and the village (里; sato or 郷; sato) was below.
Confusing cases in Hokkaidō
Because district names had been unique within a single province and nowadays prefecture boundaries are roughly aligned to province boundaries, most district names are unique within their prefecture. However, the Hokkaidō Prefecture, consisting of eleven provinces, involves a few confusing cases. There are three Kamikawa Districts and two Nakagawa Districts in the Hokkaidō Prefecture.
- Kamikawa District (Ishikari), managed by the Kamikawa Subprefecture
- Kamikawa District (Teshio), managed by the Kamikawa Subprefecture
- Kamikawa District (Tokachi), managed by the Tokachi Subprefecture
- Nakagawa District (Teshio), managed by the Kamikawa Subprefecture
- Nakagawa District (Tokachi), managed by the Tokachi Subprefecture
Abuta District, Rumoi District, Sorachi District, and Yufutsu District are deceptively similar, but each of them is a single district allotted to two subprefectures.
- Abuta District, managed by Iburi subprefecture and Shiribeshi subprefecture
- Sorachi District, managed by Kamikawa subprefecture and Sorachi subprefecture
- Teshio District, managed by Rumoi subprefecture and Sōya Subprefecture
- Yufutsu District, managed by Iburi subprefecture and Kamikawa subprefecture
