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''Todōfuken'' | alt_name = | map = 330px | category = Unitary State | territory = Japan | start_date = | current_number = 47 | number_date = | population_range = 584,982 (Tottori) – 12,059,237 (Tōkyō) | area_range = (Kagawa) – (Hokkaido) | government = Prefecture Government, Central Government | subdivision = Districts }} The prefectures of Japan consist of 47 prefectures. They form the first level of jurisdiction and administrative division of Japan. They consist of 43 proper, two , one and one . The Meiji ''Fuhanken sanchisei'' administration created the first prefectures to replace the provinces of Japan in 1868.〔Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric, 2002: ("Provinces and prefectures" ) in ''Japan encyclopedia'', p. 780.〕 Each prefecture's chief executive is a directly-elected . Ordinances and budgets are enacted by a unicameral whose members are elected for four-year terms. Under the current Local Autonomy Law, each prefecture is subdivided into and and each district into and . For example, Hokkaido has 14 subprefectures that act as of the prefecture. Some other prefectures also have branch offices that carry out prefectural administrative functions outside the capital. Tokyo, the Capital of Japan, is a merged city-prefecture; a metropolis, it has features of both cities and prefectures. == Background == The West's use of "prefecture" to label these Japanese regions stems from 16th-century Portuguese explorers' and traders' use of "''prefeitura''" to describe the fiefdoms they encountered there. Its original sense in Portuguese, however, was closer to "municipality" than "province". (Today, in turn, Japan uses its word ''ken'' (), meaning "prefecture", to identify Portuguese districts while in Brazil the word "Prefeitura" is used to refer to a City Hall.) Those fiefs were headed by a local warlord or family. Though the fiefs have long since been dismantled, merged, and reorganized multiple times, and been granted legislative governance and oversight, the rough translation stuck. The Meiji government established the current system in July 1871 with the abolition of the han system and establishment of the prefecture system (廃藩置県 ''haihan-chiken''). Although there were initially over 300 prefectures, many of them being former han territories, this number was reduced to 72 in the latter part of 1871, and 47 in 1888. The Local Autonomy Law of 1947 gave more political power to prefectures, and installed prefectural governors and parliaments. In 2003, then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi proposed that the government consolidate the current prefectures into about 10 regional states. The plan called for each region to have greater autonomy than existing prefectures. This process would reduce the number of sub-prefecture administrative regions and cut administrative costs.〔Mabuchi, Masaru, ("Municipal Amalgamation in Japan" ), World Bank, 2001.〕 The Japanese government is also considering a plan to merge several groups of prefectures, creating a sub-national administrative division system consisting of between nine and 13 states, and giving these states more local autonomy than the prefectures currently enjoy.〔("''Doshusei'' Regional System" ) National Association for Research Advancement.〕 , no reorganization has been scheduled. 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「Prefectures of Japan」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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