Claim: Japan contains Tokyo.

The are 23 municipalities that together make up the core and the most populous part of Tokyo , Japan . Together , they occupy the land that was originally Tokyo City before it was abolished in 1943 to become part of the newly created Tokyo Metropolis . The special wards ' structure was established under the Japanese Local Autonomy Act and is unique to Tokyo . Nevertheless , analogues exist in historic and contemporary Chinese and Korean administration .   In Japanese , they are commonly known as the . Confusingly , all wards refer to themselves as a city in English , but the Japanese designation of remains unchanged . Moreover , in everyday English , Tokyo as a whole is also referred to as a city . Thus , the closest English equivalents for the special wards would be the London boroughs , and this can help to understand their structures and functions .   This is merely a grouping of special wards ; there is no associated single government body of wards separate from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government . Functionally , this eliminated the City of Tokyo as a layer of administration , streamlining the government . Recently , movements to reorganize other cities within their prefectures in a similar fashion have gained currency , that of Osaka , Nagoya -LRB- Chukyo -RRB- , Yokohama -LRB- Kanagawa -RRB- remain active . If reorganized , those prefectures would also contain special wards and the aforementioned cities would be dissolved . In that sense , the term special does not refer something akin to a capital district , rather to a former government entity having undergone a process of streamlining .