Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japanese districts and municipalites/Archive

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Although all cities are unique in the Japanese writing system, some are identical in Romaji: Kashima (鹿島), Saga and Kashima (鹿嶋), Ibaraki. So "{city}" is inappropriate. "{city}, {prefecture}" is better.

A lot of towns and villages have the same name ones, but as far as I know, they are unique in a prefecture. So "{town}, {prefecture}" and "{village}, {prefecture}" are reasonable. But towns and villages directly belong to a country (郡), not a prefecture. -- Nanshu

You would be surprised by the fact that there are two districts that have exactly the same Chinese characters and reading. I have no idea how to handle them.
Anyway, I am working on naming. I will let you know if I need your comment. -- Taku 01:12, Feb 1, 2004 (UTC)

I forgot Fuchu. --Nanshu 03:44, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Wikiproject: Japanese place names

Hi. Thank you for your contribution to Wikiproject Japanese place names. Do you have any idea about name overloading of Japanese place names, espacially:

  • Yamato (whole Japan, a city in Kanagawa pref., old name of Nara pref., many towns in everywhere Japan, famous war ship, famous animation title)
  • Hitachi (old name of Ibaraki pref., medium city in Ibaraki, wellknown manufacture)
  • Toyota (medium city in Aichi pref., wellknown manufacture, train station near Tokyo)

I think, in this cases, we need disambiguation pages, and city names are suffixed with "_city". And I think it is better to all city names suffixed with "_city" to make consistency. Takanoha 11:41, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)Takanoha

I think City suffix is rather redundant given that (1) US cities have no such. (2) There are many overlap among cities too and having more than one disambig scheme can be very confusing. (3) the current scheme, {city-name}, {prefecture} seems working fine. (4) Very few non-Japanese place names that have Japanese names, so the suffix Japan is not needed.
I have been thinking that it might be unfair to give the privilage of the common name to city, while other have disambig names. So I think it might be rather simple and consistent if we just name all cities with the form of {city-name}, {prefecture}. Let me know what you think. -- Taku 01:13, Feb 1, 2004 (UTC)
This is not a question of "fair", this is a question of what people are looking for. 99.99% of the time, Hiroshima in the English-speaking world means the city where they dropped the atom bomb. If they're looking for something else, the options can be noted in a disambiguation paragraph at the beginning or end. -- Jpatokal 01:13, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I do not think anyone else are watching this old thread. By the way, are you aware of San Francisco, California? What percentage of people in the English-speaking world would look for another San Francisco? Takanoha 15:47, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)


First of all, I did not know that the current practice of a Japanese city name is "city name, prefecture name", because Wikipedia:WikiProject Japanese prefectures#Cities recommends the "city name" alone. Adding "City" and "Japan" had some reason, but I think they are not essential.

"City name, prefecture name" is almost perfect except for confliction between a city name and district name: e.g. Sapporo. Takanoha 07:54, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

city name, prefecture name is not a current practice, but one that I am proposing. It seems that in the US places, cities have a form of {city name, state name} and the county has a form of {county name, County, state name} (notice County is capitalized). e.g. Winona, Minnesota, which is a city and Winona County, Minnesota, which is a county as the name says. Thus, we can probably do the same thing. What do you think? -- Taku 18:18, Feb 1, 2004 (UTC)
I have created all of districts, towns and villages in Okinawa as a test. To avoid confict as you pointed out, I put district to the name for district. I think it is working. -- Taku 02:39, Feb 2, 2004 (UTC)

Agreed on [city name, Prefecture name]

Ack! I have just remembered that some cities name are famous enough that they might look odd with having prefecture suffix; e.g. Hiroshima, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Fukuoka. I still favor the consistency over having common names. Any idea? -- Taku 06:36, Feb 6, 2004 (UTC)
If any city is famous enough to have its own prefecture, it does not need to be suffixed! -- Jpatokal 01:13, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Admittedly Hiroshima, Hiroshima is ugly, but let's see New York, New York. But I have no idea how treat "Tokyo City". -- Takanoha 15:17, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hmm, New York, New York. I guess then Hiroshima, Hiroshima is not too bad. After getting moveing done, we will see people's reaction anyway. -- Taku 16:59, Feb 7, 2004 (UTC)

Towns and villages

I am strongly against mandatory use of district names for naming towns and villages. There is no fundamental diffrence among cities, towns, and villages. Towns and villages naturally promote to cities when their population grow. A prefecture having more than one town or village of the same name are rare cases. As far as I know, they are Azuma in Nagano and Sanwa in Hiroshima. And I think such cases will increse in no possibilities.

Admittedly, in the past, districts subsidized towns and villages but not cities, however, districts lose administrative function decades ago. Districts continue to serve for postal adressing, but many people today tend to omit district names from their addresses.

My proposal: {Town or Village name, Prefecture name} and insert District name only if need.

Agreed. Let's just go creating articles with this scheme first. If we got a problem, then we can fix it. -- Taku 06:31, Feb 6, 2004 (UTC)

It's OK. -- Takanoha 15:17, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

We have to standardize how to disambiguate the name that are shared by two or more towns/villages of the same prefecture.

  • Taku uses "{Town/Village}, {District}, {Prefecture}"
  • Takanoha uses "{Town/Village}, {Prefecture} ({old province?})"

I prefer the former. --Nanshu 03:44, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Translation of Gun

Do you have a firm support for "District" for translation of Gun?

I can not help but associate "District" to Columbia DC. I think, because Japanese Gun today has no administrative function, they differ from both District and County that normal English speakers perceive. I propose Gun and put each page a link to some explanation. The word Gun has at least one major usage [1]. Further, as far as I known, most people seldom use Gun names without the suffix. But this is not a firm opinion. Takanoha 11:21, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Considering the established and consistent use of "district" in Wikipedia, I retract this proposal without reservation.

I have updated the main page to reflect the new scheme we have come up with. -- Taku 16:59, Feb 7, 2004 (UTC)