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The Japanese addressing system is used to identify a specific location in Japan. When written in Asian characters, addresses start with the largest geographical entity and proceed to the most specific one. When written in Latin characters, addresses follow the convention used by most Western addresses and start with the smallest geographic entity (typically a house number) and proceed to the largest. The Japanese system is complex and idiosyncratic, the product of the natural growth of urban areas, as opposed to the systems used in cities that are laid out as grids and divided into quadrants or districts. ==Address parts== Japanese addresses begin with the largest division of the country, the prefecture. These are generally called ''ken'' (県), but there are also three other special prefecture types: ''to'' (都) for Tokyo, ''dō'' (道) for ''Hokkaidō'' and ''fu'' (府) for the two urban prefectures of Osaka and Kyoto. Following the prefecture is the municipality. For a large municipality this is the city (''shi'', 市). Cities with a large enough population, called designated cities, can be further broken down into wards (''ku, ''区''). ''Tokyo has both ordinary cities and special wards (''tokubetsu-ku'', 特別区), each of which has the status of a city. For smaller municipalities, the address includes the district (''gun'', 郡) followed by the town (''chō'' or ''machi'', 町) or village (''mura'' or ''son'', 村). In Japan, a city is separate from districts, which contain towns and villages. For addressing purposes, municipalities may be divided into ''machi'' (町) and/or ''aza'' (字). Confusingly, despite using the same character, the ''machi'' here is purely a unit of address, not administration; likewise, there are also ''ku'' address divisions that are not administrative special wards. There are two common schemes: # Municipality is divided first into ''machi'' and then into city districts (丁目 ''chōme''). Example: 台東区() (Taito-''ku'', (4-''chōme'' )) # Municipality is divided into ''ōaza'' (大字), which may be divided into ''aza'' (字), which may in turn be divided into ''koaza'' (小字). Example: 青森市() (Aomori-''shi'', (Takizawa, ''aza'' Sumiyoshi )) However, exceptions abound, and the line between the schemes is often blurry as there are no clear delimiters for ''machi'', ''aza'', etc. Below this level, two styles of addressing are possible. # In the newer ''jūkyo hyōji'' (住居表示) style, enacted into law by the 1962 Act on Indication of Residential Address (住居表示に関する法律)〔http://law.e-gov.go.jp/htmldata/S37/S37HO119.html〕 and used by the majority of the country, the next level is the city block (街区 ''gaiku''), always followed by the building number (番号 ''bangō''). Building 10 in block 5 would be formally written as 5番10号 (5-''ban'' 10-''gō''). For apartment buildings, the apartment number (部屋番号 ''heya bangō'') may be appended to the building with a hyphen, so apartment 103 in the aforementioned building would be 5番10-103号. # In the older ''chiban'' (地番) style, still used in some rural and older city areas, the next level is the land number (番地 ''banchi''), optionally followed by a land number extension (formally 支号 ''shigō'', more often 枝版 ''edaban''). The land number designates a piece of land registered in the land registry, and a land number extension is assigned when a piece of land is divided into two or more pieces in the registry. This can be written as any of 3番地5 (3-''banchi'' 5), 3番地の5 (3-''banchi-no'' 5) or 3番5 (3-''ban'' 5). Land not designated by the registry is known as ''mubanchi'' (無番地, lit. "no land numbers"), with any dwellings there being ''bangaichi'' (番外地, lit. "land outside numbers"). In both styles, since all address elements from ''chōme'' down are numeric, in casual use it is common to form them into a string separated by hyphens or the possessive suffix の (''no''), resulting in Asakusa 4-5-10 or Asakusa 4の5の10. This renders the two styles indistinguishable, but since each municipality adopts one style or the other, there is no risk of ambiguity. The apartment number may also be appended, resulting in 4-5-10-103. Street names are seldom used in postal addresses (except in Kyoto and some Hokkaidō cities such as Sapporo), and most Japanese streets do not have names. ''Banchi'' blocks often have an irregular shape, as ''banchi'' numbers were assigned by order of registration in the older system, meaning that especially in older areas of the city they will not run in a linear order. It is for this reason that when giving directions to a location, most people will offer cross streets, visual landmarks and subway stations, such as "at Chūō-dori and Matsuya-dori across the street from Matsuya and Ginza station" for a store in Tokyo. In fact, many businesses have maps on their literature and business cards. In addition, signs attached to utility poles often specify the city district name and block number, and detailed block maps of the immediate area are sometimes posted near bus stops and train station exits. In addition to the address itself, all locations in Japan have a postal code. After the reform of 1998, this begins with a three-digit number, a hyphen, and a four-digit number, for example 123-4567. A postal mark, 〒, may precede the code to indicate that the number following is a postal code. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Japanese addressing system」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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