Abstract
Towns and villages of Japan have two characters: admunistrative unit and comm nity. However. a community grows larger or decays like alivbig thing. Sometimes a town or village area does not conform to a community area. In such cases the integration or separation of administrative area is necessary. The reshuffling of towns and villages in 1889 was made by leasing on the Community system with old socio-economic ties inherited from the Shogunate era. Soon after the reshuffling, Japanese towns and villages were influenced by the industrial revolution and the growth of cities. The Law of 1889 was proved to be not well-workable for the local administration. The Low of 1889 was revised in and it was permitted to towns and villages to or gan.ize an association according to a common interest, which thenceforth have generally made a new community tie. And then, those towns and villages concerned were joined together into one. The number of towns and villages in Japan has been decreasing, and their areas have been becoming larger and larger.
