Japanese Mayors
Edited by Andrew Stevens and Marie Yoshikawa

23 April 2012: Local government in Japan is composed of 47 prefectural governments (roughly akin to a county), each headed by a directly elected Governor (elected on a four year term) and 1,727 municipalities, each headed by a directly elected Mayor (elected likewise).

The nature and role of local government is codified in the Local Autonomy Law issued under the 1947 Japanese constitution, which guarantees local autonomy against the national government, who retain a degree of control over localities through subsidies. Over the past decade a series of centrally-sponsored mergers by the Koizumi government (2001-2006) has seen the number of municipalities decrease from 3,110 to 1,727.

| Classes of cities | Table of mayors | Japan's political parties |

Classes of cities
Of these municipalities, there are several classes of city, with the most basic and numerous class of city enjoying the same powers and status as towns or villages (the designation stemming from its population size i.e. more than 50,000 residents).

All cities supply residents with water/sewerage, waste collection and disposal, public health, social welfare, parks, environmental services, planning/development control, economic development, fire and rescue, elementary education and colleges. 41 cities with populations of 200,000 or more are known as Special Cities and are entitled to provide some degree of prefectural services locally, while 41 of 300,000 or more residents are known as Core Cities and can provide further services.

The 20 Designated Cities each have populations above 500,000 and carry out most services within their jurisdiction rather than under the prefectural government. They are further required to subdivide themselves into ‘wards’ in order to carry out basic functions such as resident registration and tax collection on a more local level. All such designations must be approved by the Cabinet of Japan following an application by the relevant municipality and prefecture.

The Designated Cities owe their existence to the creation of local authorities in 1898 in Japan’s largest cities of Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya and Kobe. The City of Tokyo was designated a prefecture in 1943 and is today unique within Japan as a metropolis rather than prefecture or city level government, with Tokyo Metropolitan Government (headed by a Governor rather than Mayor) sitting above 23 Special Wards in the centre and a further 26 cities, five towns and eight villages in its western suburbs. Several other large Japanese cities, most notably Osaka and Nagoya, have expressed their desire to become metropolises through merging the prefectural and city tiers.

While Japanese mayors are directly elected for four-year terms with no term limits, individuals stand as independents and are then backed by local chapters of the main national parties. Although it is not uncommon for several parties of a similar stripe (e.g. the centre-left Democratic Party of Japan and the left Social Democratic Party) to back one candidate, in recent years the two main parties have banned local chapters from backing the same candidate, as happened on a number of occasions, in order to make city races more competitive and along national lines.

Foreign nationals cannot vote in Japanese municipal elections and all candidates must be 25 years or older (voters must be aged 20 or older). A petition of one third of eligible voters in a municipality (or one sixth if more than 400,000 residents) is required for any recall attempt against a mayor. It is common for mayors of larger cities to request a vice mayor be seconded from central government to assist them in their duties, although this appointment must be ratified by the city assembly.

Japan’s mayors are represented by the Japan Association of City Mayors, founded in 1898. The association is one of the six local government associations of Japan, which are represented outside of Japan in countries such as the US, UK and China by the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations, founded in 1989.

Mayors of Designated Cities of Japan
and Governor of the Tokyo Metropolis