都道府県, read as とどうふけん is a word used to represent the various top level administrative areas of Japan. The Wikipedia article has some great maps, diagrams and more than enough information you’ll ever need to know about this topic.
In Japanese the breakdown is as follows: 都：東京都の1、道：北海道の1、府：京都府および大阪府の2、県：それら以外の43. So we see that there is one each of 都 and 道, being Tokyo and Hokkaido. Then we have two 府 being Osaka and Kyoto and the rest being 県. I tend to translate 都 as City or Metropolis and 府 as Metropolitan Prefecture with 県 being Prefecture (it can help to think of these as ‘states’).
I like pictures so here’s a map from Wiki:
This means that learning these 4 suffixes is very useful when trying to recognise certain proper nouns in Japanese. While 道 and 都 are not exactly rare kanji, when you see them as a suffix it is probably generally a good guess to at least consider that you could be dealing with 北海道 and 東京都. 府 and 県 don’t get used much outside their meanings of Metropolitan Prefecture and Prefecture respectively, for example 県警 is the Prefectural Police.
Finally it is worth learning 区市町村, read as くしちょうそん, which is the lower level administrative area designations. The Wikipedia article is again very in-depth so worth a read. These are used as suffixes to show what are referred to as “wards” and then “city of X”, “town of Y” and “village of Z”. So let’s look at my old address in Japan and spot these features. There is a whole other discussion on wards, mainly that Tokyo is a type of SAR being made up of 23 wards but wards do exist throughout Japan as well as will see in the below examples.
日本、〒456-0003 愛知県名古屋市熱田区波寄町12－1プチメゾン金山101号
The first thing to note is that Japanese addresses are written from big to small, that is they start with the largest administrative region and then go down to the smallest. So we start off with Japan, then there is the Japanese postcode symbol followed by the 7 digit postcode. Then we see 愛知県, read as あいちけん, and the 県 should be the main thing that draws your attention. You know at least you are dealing with a prefecture and you have narrowed the address down pretty significantly at this point.
Next we have 名古屋市, なごやし, or Nagoya City. This is the main city in Aichi (basically where the symbol for 名古屋城 is in the above picture) and next we have 熱田区, あつたく, or Atsuta Ward. These could be thought of roughly as “suburbs” but they’re generally a lot larger than Australian suburbs (my only frame of reference). As can be seen, we have again zoomed in a quite a bit and we are now down to a 8.20km2 area with approximately 66,000 people in it.
Then we have 波寄町12-1 which is Namiyose Town (this is a slightly strange reading of this kanji and very few Japanese people used to read it correctly, they would generally say Namiyoru or Namiyori) with the numbers referring to the 丁目 system or basically the block numbering system. A much closer look and you can see the number 12 is designating the block, with 1 showing it is the first in that block. Finding your way around the 丁目 system is tough sometimes as these numbers are not written anywhere on the street/buildings, so you generally want to remember the name of the building, プチメゾン金山 and ask around or go to a 交番. The last numbers, 101号 is room/apartment #101. That wasn’t my actual room number but I’ve forgotten what it was so that will do for now.
Let’s look at a Tokyo address to see the difference. We’ll go with the iconic 交差点前スタバ in 渋谷 (しぶや). The address is 日本、〒150-0042 東京都渋谷区宇田川町21-6 1F. Starts off pretty much the same, we’re in Japan with a Tokyo postcode, 東京都 (Metropolis of Tokyo) in the Shibuya Ward, 宇田川町 (うだがわちょう) Utagawa Town, block 21, building 6, Ground Floor (be careful that Japan uses 1F for the ground floor).
I hope this post has helped you understand how Japanese addresses work and also taught you some useful kanji along the way. Check out my other posts for all other sorts of Japanese learning.
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