Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan

, also known as a  or ,  is a defined class or category of Japanese cities.  It is a local administrative division created by the national government.   These cities all have a population over 500,000 people.Web-Japan.org,  "Local self-government," p. 3; retrieved 2012-12-2.  

History
The designated cites or ordinance cities were created because of the Local Autonomy Law of Japan. Each city does many of the things normally done by prefectures.

List
Cities designated by government ordinance recognized starting in 1956.Jacobs, A.J.  "Japan's Evolving Nested Municipal Hierarchy: The Race for Local Power in the 2000s," Urban Studies Research, (2011);  doi:10.1155/2011/692764; retrieved 2012-12-5. There are 20+ of these cities, including
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 Chiba, 1992Jacobs,  Table 1; retrieved 2012-12-18.
 Fukuoka, 1972
 Hamamatsu, 2007
 Hiroshima, 1980
 Kawasaki, 1972
 Kitakyushu, 1963
 Kyoto
 Kobe
 Kumamoto, Kumamoto
 Kyoto
 Nagoya
 Niigata
 Okayama
 OsakaBuhnik, Sophie.  "From Shrinking Cities to Toshi no Shukushō: Identifying Patterns of Urban Shrinkage in the Osaka Metropolitan Area," Berkeley Planning Journal, Vol. 23, No. 1 (2001), p. 135 [PDF 4 of 24]; retrieved 2012-12-2.
 Sagamihara
 Saitama
 Sakai
 Sapporo
 Sendai
 Shizuoka
 Yokohama
 tokyo 
 nakasaki
 doan

Related pages

 Administrative division
 Urban area
 Municipalities in Japan

References

Other websites
 ; graphic shows designated cities in context [PDF 7 of 40]