Latest inquiry of historic towns in Japan which was made by Dept. of Construction indicates that there are 462 historic towns in 307 different cities. This paper will clarify the current situation of the historic towns as contrasted with urban core from the viewpoint of city planning. Contents of the paper are as follows : 1. problems of listing and demarcating the historic area 2. distribution of historic towns and their present condition in a whole city 3. distribution of varieties of historic towns and their problems 4. planned primary distributors which will penetrate the historic towns 5. existing estate of marchants' district and samurai's district in 'Jokamachi'