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 the Local Autonomy Law of 1947.

City status

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.

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 a population of six thousand, while a town in the same prefecture, Otofuke, Hokkaido, has nearly forty thousand.

Japan

Coordinates: 35°N 136°E / 35°N 136°E / 35; 136

Japan (ⁱ/dʒəˈpæn/; Japanese: 日本 Nippon [nip̚põ̞ɴ] or Nihon [nihõ̞ɴ]; formally 日本国  Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku, "State of Japan") is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, the East China Sea, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The kanji that make up Japan's name mean "sun origin", and Japan is often called the "Land of the Rising Sun".

Japan is a stratovolcanic archipelago of 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku, which make up about ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area. Japan's population of 126 million is the world's tenth largest. Approximately 9.1 million people live in Tokyo, the capital city of Japan, which is the sixth largest city proper in the OECD. The Greater Tokyo Area, which includes Tokyo and several surrounding prefectures, is the world's largest metropolitan area with over 35 million residents and the world's largest urban agglomeration economy.

Tokyo

Tokyo (東京, Tōkyō, "Eastern Capital") (Japanese: [toːkjoː], English /ˈtoʊki.oʊ/), officially Tokyo Metropolis (東京都, Tōkyō-to), is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan, and is both the capital and largest city of Japan. The Greater Tokyo Area is the most populous metropolitan area in the world. It is the seat of the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese government. Tokyo is in the Kantō region on the southeastern side of the main island Honshu and includes the Izu Islands and Ogasawara Islands. Formerly known as Edo, it has been the de facto seat of government since 1603 when Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu made the city his headquarters. It officially became the capital after Emperor Meiji moved his seat to the city from the old capital of Kyoto in 1868; at that time Edo was renamed Tokyo. Tokyo Metropolis was formed in 1943 from the merger of the former Tokyo Prefecture (東京府, Tōkyō-fu) and the city of Tokyo (東京市, Tōkyō-shi).

Hiroshima

Hiroshima (広島市, Hiroshima-shi) ( listen ) is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. The city's name, 広島, means "Wide Island" in Japanese. Hiroshima gained city status on April 1, 1889. On April 1, 1980, Hiroshima became a designated city. As of 2006, the city had an estimated population of 1,154,391. Kazumi Matsui has been the city's mayor since April 2011.

Hiroshima is best known as the first city in history to be targeted by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) dropped an atomic bomb on the city at 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, near the end of World War II.

History

Sengoku period (1589–1871)

Hiroshima was established on the river delta coastline of the Seto Inland Sea in 1589 by the powerful warlord Mōri Terumoto, who made it his capital after leaving Kōriyama Castle in Aki Province.Hiroshima Castle was quickly built, and in 1593 Terumoto moved in. Terumoto was on the losing side at the Battle of Sekigahara. The winner of the battle, Tokugawa Ieyasu, deprived Mori Terumoto of most of his fiefs including Hiroshima and gave Aki Province to Masanori Fukushima, a daimyo who had supported Tokugawa.

Peace Monument

The Peace Monument, also known as the Naval Monument or Civil War Sailors Monument, stands on the grounds of the United States Capitol in Peace Circle at First Street, N.W., and Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. The 44 foot (13.4 m) high white marble memorial was erected from 1877-1878 to commemorate the naval deaths at sea during the American Civil War. Today it stands as part of a three-part sculptural group including the James A. Garfield Monument and the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial.

Description

At the top of the monument, facing west, stand two classically robed female figures. Grief holds her covered face against the shoulder of History and weeps in mourning. History holds a stylus and a tablet that was inscribed "They died that their country might live." Below Grief and History, another life-size classical female figure represents Victory, holding high a laurel wreath and carrying an oak branch, signifying strength. Below her are the infant Mars, the god of war, and the infant Neptune, god of the sea. The shaft of the monument is decorated with wreaths, ribbons, and scallop shells.