Editing Prefectures of Japan (section)

== Background ==
{{Administrative divisions of Japan}}

The West's use of "prefecture" to label these Japanese regions stems from 16th-century Portuguese explorers and [[Nanban trade|traders]] use of "prefeitura" to describe the [[fief]]doms they encountered there.{{citation needed|date=February 2021}} Its original sense in Portuguese, however, was closer to "[[Municipalities of Portugal|municipality]]" than "[[Provinces of Portugal|province]]". Today, in turn, Japan uses its word ''ken'' ({{lang|ja|県}}), meaning "prefecture", to identify [[Districts of Portugal|Portuguese districts]] while in Brazil the word "Prefeitura" is used to refer to a [[city hall]].

Those fiefs were headed by a local warlord or family. Though the fiefs have long since been dismantled, merged, and reorganized multiple times, and been granted legislative governance and oversight, the rough translation stuck.

The [[Government of Meiji Japan|Meiji government]] established the current system in July 1871 with the [[abolition of the han system]] and establishment of the {{Nihongo|prefecture system|廃藩置県|haihan-chiken}}. Although there were initially over 300 prefectures, many of them being former [[Han (administrative division)|han]] territories, this number was reduced to 72 in the latter part of 1871, and 47 in 1888. The [[Local Autonomy Law]] of 1947 gave more political power to prefectures, and installed prefectural governors and parliaments.

In 2003, [[Prime Minister of Japan|Prime Minister]] [[Junichiro Koizumi]] proposed that the government [[Merger and dissolution of municipalities of Japan|consolidate the current prefectures]] into about 10 regional states (so-called ''[[dōshūsei]]''). The plan called for each region to have greater autonomy than existing prefectures. This process would reduce the number of subprefecture administrative regions and cut administrative costs.<ref>Mabuchi, Masaru, [http://siteresources.worldbank.org/WBI/Resources/wbi37175.pdf "Municipal Amalgamation in Japan"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151106103204/http://siteresources.worldbank.org/WBI/Resources/wbi37175.pdf |date=2015-11-06 }}, World Bank, 2001.</ref> The Japanese government also considered a plan to merge several groups of prefectures, creating a subnational administrative division system consisting of between nine and 13 states, and giving these states more local autonomy than the prefectures currently enjoy.<ref>[http://www.nira.go.jp/publ/seiken/ev18n10/ev18n10-s.html "''Doshusei'' Regional System"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060926160741/http://www.nira.go.jp/publ/seiken/ev18n10/ev18n10-s.html |date=2006-09-26 }} National Association for Research Advancement.</ref> As of August 2012, this plan was abandoned.