Department of Geography and Planning, University of Akron, Abstract: Japan's ancient provinces were converted into modern prefectures after the Meiji Restoration of 1868. In the Kanto region, the eight former provinces of Musashi, Sagami, Awa, Kazusa, Shimosa, Hitachi, Shimotsuke, and Kozuke were reorganized into the seven prefectures of Tokyo, Saitama, Kanagawa, Chiba, Ibaraki, Tochigi, and Gunma. At the same time, railroads were being built to provide a new transportation method linking geographic areas.
To what extent and how rapidly did the new prefectures replace the old provinces in geographic perception? One measure of that acceptance is how the new prefectures influenced the names given to rail companies, lines, and stations, all of which were created after the province system was replaced.
Mapping and categorizing of rail names from 1872 to 1995 shows that province-based names significantly outnumbered prefecture-based names. This is especially true for station names, but is strongly apparent for rail company and line names as well. For line names, provincebased names have outnumbered prefecture-related names throughout the period. Only in the case of company names has the number of prefecture-related names (including those based on a capital city with the same name as the prefecture) finally exceeded the number of provincebased names. Spatially, province-based company, line, and station names are spread extensively throughout most of the Kanto region, whereas prefecture/capital-based names are found primarily in and around Tokyo itself.
These temporal and spatial patterns reveal that the provinces have lived on in geographic perception long after their official demise.

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Graduate student, Institute of Geoscience, University of Tsukuba, Abstract: A large amount of fossil fuel energy is used in modern agriculture. From an ecological aspect, the fossil fuel energy fixed in industrial products such as chemical fertilizers and herbicides makes agriculture inefficient. Agricultural practice needs to be aware of energy efficiency to implement low input management and to reduce the environmental impact. This study demonstrates a method of calculating the input-output energy ratio for 32 crops and examines the changes in the energy efficiency of crop production in Japan from 1970 to 1990. The results at the country level show that the input-output energy ratio changed from 2.0 to 1.2 in the two decades. The primary reason for this decline is due to the increase in the planted area of greenhouse vegetables, whose input-output energy ratio is 0.02-0.07. The secondary reason for this decline is due to the decrease in the planted area of paddy rices, whose input-output energy ratio is 2.5-3.1. The results at the prefecture level show that the input-output energy ratio declines especially in Kochi, Kumamoto and Okinawa prefecture, whose percentages of planted area of greenhouse vegetables are more than three times larger than the average for all the prefectures. The results presented also imply that agriculture in Japan has increased its impact on the natural environment through an increased use of fossil fuel energy.

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This paper aims to illustrate the changes in a rural area called Rutang Village in the inner urban fringe of Beijing City. The landscape surrounding Rutang Village and its land use pattern appear very rural. However, in spite of this appearance most of the labor force in Rutang Village is engaged in industrial activities. In short, agriculture-oriented society is shifting to industry-oriented in the area. In other words, Rutang Village is going through a transitional period from a purely rural village to an industrial workers' village. The emergence of the transition is due to the development of township and village enterprises, and the advantage of the closeness to Beijing City. Its functions related to agricultural production are strengthened by the administrative orders imposed by the Government of Beijing City, for Rutang Village provides mainly grain production. A collective farm management system is adopted in order to fulfill production quotas. At the same time, outside labor force are hired to maintain agricultural production level. Rutang Village has formed an original agricultural production model. In the survey of Rutang Village, it became apparent that changes of land use, social and organizational structure and economic activity are due to changes of state policies which contribute to a liberal circumstance for peasants in the inner fringe of Beijing City after the reform and opening. Meanwhile, it has also become apparent that there are influences from external factors such as industrialization and urbanization interacting with internal factors such as agro-technical advance and changes in peasants' life styles.

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This paper aims to examine the current situation in Japan's largest cities and describe the Japanese urban system, by analyzing the distribution of the management function (head offices and branch offices) of the country's largest private firms. This study is based on data for 2, 241 private firms. The status of cities under study is compared from various standpoints. An attempt is made to throw light on the inter-connections between cities. Finally, a model of the urban system of major cities is proposed. Twenty-nine cities were chosen for study (Figure 1), each of which has more than 10 firm head offices or 300 branch offices (Table 2). Clearly, the largest number (919) of head offices is found in Tokyo. This is followed by Osaka, in which the head offices of 314 firms are located. However, it should be noted that in recent years, more and more firms have adopted the system of multiple head offices (Table 3). Including such firms, the number of private firms having their head offices in Tokyo is 1, 105, which represents 49.3% of the total.
Tokyo houses the largest number of branch offices, as well. As was the case for head offices, the city with the second largest number of branch offices is Osaka. After Tokyo and Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka, Sendai, Hiroshima, and Sapporo are the cities with the most branch offices.
The author analyzed the hierarchical relationships of branch offices (Table 5), the type of industry (Table 6), city territories served by branch offices (Table 7 and Figure 4), head office and branch office size (Table 9) and inter-urban connectivity (Table 10). The author proposes a model for the urban system based on the findings of preceding analyses (Figure 6). This model clearly shows the complex networks of inter-connections established between major Japanese cities.

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This paper analyzes the accuracy of count data transferred through the areal weighting interpolation with respect to the geometrical properties of zonal systems used for aggregating spatial data. A stochastic model is employed to measure the estimation error caused in data transfer between incompatible zonal systems. The relationship between estimation error and the geometrical properties of zones is approximately represented in analytical forms. The major results are as follows: 1) the perimeter of the target zone and the area and perimeter of the source zones are crucial to the accuracy of the areal weighting interpolation; 2) estimation error increases in proportion to the square root of the perimeter of the target zone; 3) concerning the lattice system, estimation error is proportional to the square root of the perimeter and the biquadratic root of the area of the cell, and inversely proportional to the biquadratic root of the number of cells; 4) the hexagonal lattice yields the most accurate estimates among all lattices.

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