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29-812: The Gokayama region includes the former villages of Taira , Kamitaira , and Toga . The gasshō hamlet of Ainokura is located in Taira, while that of Suganuma is in Kamitaira; both are nationally designated Historic Sites . Ainokura hamlet ( 相倉集落 , Ainokura shuraku ) , in the Gokayama region, was inscribed on the World Heritage List in December 1995 as one of the three villages of gassho -style houses. Ainokura has 20 gassho-style houses known as minka . Most of them are 100 to 200 years old, and

58-566: A Liberal Democratic – Komeito coalition cabinet ( minority government ) since 2024 . The prime minister is nominated by the National Diet, while the remaining ministers are appointed and dismissed by the prime minister. The Cabinet is collectively responsible to the National Diet and must resign if a motion of no confidence is adopted by the National Diet. Under the Constitution of Japan , Cabinet ministers are appointed after

87-830: A local identity. Rausch suggests that post-merger policies need a better framework. He points out an example of the Hirosaki City merger with Iwaki Town and Soma Village, in which the city tourism policy focused only on images of Hirosaki, resulting in a poor outcome in tourism for the smaller municipalities involved. Cabinet of Japan Naruhito [REDACTED] Fumihito [REDACTED] Shigeru Ishiba ( LDP ) Second Ishiba Cabinet ( LDP – Komeito coalition ) [REDACTED] [REDACTED] Fukushiro Nukaga Kōichirō Genba [REDACTED] Masakazu Sekiguchi Hiroyuki Nagahama Saburo Tokura Kazuo Ueda The Cabinet of Japan ( Japanese : 内閣 , Hepburn : Naikaku )

116-403: A necessity to consolidate villages and 'natural settlements' into larger-scale cities as modernization progressed and consolidation was promoted to provide greater access to public facilities and schools. There have been several "waves" of merger activity between Japanese municipalities. The first wave, known as "the great Meiji mergers" ( 明治の大合併 , meiji-no-daigappei ) , occurred in

145-567: A small amount of land and slash-and-burn agriculture. Gokayama is twinned with: Municipal mergers and dissolutions in Japan Municipal mergers and dissolutions carried out in Japan ( 市町村合併 , shichōson gappei ) have occurred since the Meiji era to join the facilities and legal boundaries of municipal districts, towns, and cities. Often, these mergers are driven by

174-764: Is a portmanteau of Ōmori ( 大 森) and Kamata (蒲 田 ); Ōkama was not chosen because of its likeness to 'okama', a derogatory word for homosexual. Toyoshina, Nagano , is an acronym of the four antecedent villages: To ba, Yo shino, Shi nden, and Na riai. Another common naming method is borrowing a well known nearby place name and adding a direction, such as in Nishitōkyō ("West Tokyo"), Kitakyūshū ("North Kyūshū "), Higashiōsaka ("East Osaka "), Shikokuchūō ("Central Shikoku ") and Higashiōmi ("East Ōmi"). Other towns sometimes use nouns with pleasant connotations, such as peace ( 平和 , heiwa ) , green ( 緑 , midori ) , or future ( 未来 , mirai ) . A characteristic of

203-474: Is negatively associated with legislative performance. Ikuta concluded that, while there are cases of successful mergers that embrace the common characteristics of the region as a whole, there are also many merged municipalities that struggle with a new shared regional image and identity. The Great Heisei Amalgamations were characterized at least in part by misunderstandings of regional brands, resulting in medium- and long-term regional competitiveness for achieving

232-521: Is the chief executive body of the government of Japan . It consists of the prime minister , who is appointed by the Emperor after being nominated by the National Diet , in addition to up to nineteen other members, called ministers of state . The current cabinet is Second Ishiba Cabinet , which was formed on 11 November 2024, is led by the prime minister Shigeru Ishiba . The country has had

261-630: The Trinity Reform  [ ja ] , a series of administrative and financial reforms that significantly affected smaller municipalities after their implementation in the early 2000s, many of these small municipalities had to voluntarily merge with others. The main motivation of the reform was stated as to support small local governments that would become unstable in the event of poor fiscal periods. From April 1999 to April 2014, there were 188 cases of municipal absorption, and 461 new municipalities. Among them, 582 consolidations were done during

290-542: The decentralisation movement started, based on the Omnibus Decentralization Law and an amendment to the Special Law for Municipal Mergers (SLMM) in 1999, which provided strong financial and economic incentives for municipal consolidation, the central government forced municipal mergers by using incentive schemes according to special financial measures: Although mergers were not mandatory,

319-626: The Cabinet. Contrary to the practice in many constitutional monarchies , the Emperor is not even the nominal chief executive. Instead, the Constitution explicitly vests executive authority in the Cabinet. Hence, nearly all of the day-to-day work of governing is done by the Cabinet. In practice, much of the Cabinet's authority is exercised by the prime minister. Under the Constitution, the prime minister exercises "control and supervision" over

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348-471: The Constitution, Ministers of State are not subject to legal action without the consent of the prime minister during their tenure of office. The current cabinet, led by the newly appointed Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba , and succeeded the First Ishiba Cabinet . Ishiba is currently in the process of forming his cabinet, following the 2024 General Election . As of 11 November 2024,

377-574: The Great Heisei Consolidations period from April 1999 to March 2006. This number includes duplicated consolidations. There were 8 merging patterns during the Great Heisei Amalgamations: Naming a new post-merger municipality is not a negligible matter. Disagreement on a name sometimes causes merger talks to break down. If a city is far larger than the towns joining it, no arguments take place;

406-522: The Heisei mergers is a rapid increase of hiragana names. The names of Japan's cities used to be written in Kanji exclusively. The first instance of " hiragana municipalities " was Mutsu ( むつ ) , renamed in 1960. The number of place names using hiragana reached 45 by April 2006, including Tsukuba ( つくば ) , Kahoku ( かほく ) , Sanuki ( さぬき ) , Tsukubamirai ( つくばみらい ) , and Saitama ( さいたま ) , which

435-429: The appointment of a new prime minister. While they are in office, legal action may not be taken against Cabinet ministers without the consent of the prime minister. The Cabinet must resign en masse in the following circumstances: The Cabinet exercises two kinds of power. Some of its powers are nominally exercised by the Emperor with the binding "advice and approval" of the Cabinet. Other powers are explicitly vested in

464-704: The central government established a goal of decreasing municipality numbers to 1,000, and used these incentives to urge prefectural governments to promote mergers. There are two types of municipal merger under this and previous policies: Local governments used local referendums or questionnaire surveys regarding potential mergers to evaluate public opinion . 352 local referendums on merging took place from 1999 to 2006. A vast number of municipal mergers, known as "the great Heisei mergers" ( 平成の大合併 , heisei-no-daigappei ) , were executed from 1999 to 2010 (the so-called Great Heisei Amalgamations). Municipality numbers dropped from 3,232 to 1,727 during this period. Due to

493-462: The city's name simply survives. However, if their sizes do not differ significantly, lengthy disputes can ensue. Sometimes, the problem can be solved by adopting the name of the district or compounding the names of the localities to be merged; the latter method is relatively common in Europe, but is unusual in Japan. These compounded names are often abbreviated. For example, the Ōta (大田) ward of Tokyo

522-472: The establishment of a National Treasury Subsidy System. 5,000 villages disappeared, but the number of cities were doubled. In 1965, the Special Law for Municipal Mergers (SLMM) was enacted, but it failed to motivate municipalities to voluntarily merge with others. The declining birthrate of Japan and very poor fiscal state led the Japanese central government to promote national consolidation reform from

551-491: The executive branch, and no law or Cabinet order can take effect without the prime minister's countersignature (and the emperor's promulgation). While Cabinet Ministers in most other parliamentary democracies theoretically have some freedom of action (within the limits of cabinet collective responsibility ), the Japanese Cabinet is effectively an extension of the prime minister's authority. According to Article 75 of

580-568: The late 20th century onwards. As of January 2006, many municipalities in Japan contained fewer than 200 residents. Japanese municipalities require skilled workers, and 40% of Japan's GDP consisted of debts from local governments. Efforts to merge local governments have been made with aims to expand residential area per municipal government, create different school attendance boundaries for elementary school and junior high school students, and to allow more widespread use of public facilities. After

609-590: The mergers have been limited to local municipalities. Mergers of prefectures have been discussed in some regions of Japan. Suzuki and Ha's empirical research found that municipal merger in Japan during 2008 to 2014 discourages performance of legislative activity and bylaw proposals, using a dataset of 754 Japanese city-level governments. Local councils, after municipal mergers, propose fewer municipal bylaws, showing that these communities produced after municipal mergers appear to experience worse legislative performance. Their research also shows that enlarging municipal size

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638-435: The municipal system more efficient. Although the government purports to respect self-determination of the municipalities, some consider the policy to be compulsory. As a result of mergers, some cities such as Daisen, Akita temporarily had very large city assemblies. Some people see it as a form of federalism ; they consider that the ultimate goal is to change Japan into a union consisting of more autonomous states. So far,

667-496: The oldest is said to have been built some 400 years ago. The gassho roof has a slope of about 60 degrees forming a nearly equilateral triangle. This steep pitch allows snow to slide off the roof easily. The enormous roof is supported by stout oak beams called chonabari , which are curved at the base. The roofs are rethatched every 15 to 20 years. Nowadays this is done by Gokayama Forest Owners' Cooperative. Fumihito, Prince Akishino stayed at an Ainokura inn two times. The first time

696-461: The period from 1888 to 1889, when the modern municipal system was established. Before the mergers, existing municipalities were the direct successors of spontaneous hamlets called hanseison ( 藩政村 ) , or villages under the han system . This han system is still reflected in the postal system for rural areas as postal units called ōaza ( 大字 ) . The mergers slashed the number of ‘natural settlements’ ( 自然集落 , shizen shūraku ) that existed at

725-486: The selection of the prime minister. A majority of the Cabinet, including the prime minister, must be members of the National Diet, and all members must be civilians . Under the Cabinet Law, the number of Cabinet ministers (excluding the prime minister) must be fourteen or less, but this may be increased to nineteen if a special need arises. If the Cabinet collectively resigns, it continues to exercise its functions until

754-419: The time from 71,314 to 15,859 cities, towns and villages, justified at the time by the increased scale and relevance of the resulting respective autonomous governing bodies. The second wave, called "the great Shōwa mergers" ( 昭和の大合併 , shōwa-no-daigappei ) , took place over the period from 1953 to 1956. It reduced the number of cities, towns and villages by over half, from 9,868 to 3,472 with purposes of

783-545: The village, nine of which are gassho-zukuri style houses. Two were built in the late Edo period (early to mid-19th century), six were built in the Meiji period, and the newest one was built in 1925. During the Edo period, the economy of Gokayama was based on Japanese paper , sericulture , and the production of saltpeter , which is the raw material for gunpowder. The inhabitants of Suganuma hamlet also practiced rice cultivation using

812-425: Was upgraded to a designated city in 2003. The creation of Minami Alps in 2003 is the first example of a katakana city name. Most of Japan's rural municipalities largely depend on subsidies from the central government. They are often criticized for spending money for wasteful public enterprises to keep jobs. The central government, which is itself running budget deficits, has a policy of encouraging mergers to make

841-586: Was when he was a second-year student at the Gakushūin high-school when he took part in a summer geography training seminar. While staying in Ainkoura, he said, "I like three places in the world most, one of them is Gokayama". The second time was nine years after that with his wife. Suganuma hamlet ( 菅沼集落 , Suganuma shuraku ) is surrounded on three sides by the Shōgawa River. There are currently 12 houses in

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