In Japan’s modern era land readjustment system is a very important procedure of urban development. In the land readjustment area of Kyoto city we are able to find some historical transitions in the layout method of “machi”, the minimum unit of town community. The city’s technical guidelines in 1935 adopted street conscious method in “machi” layout. One “machi” was settled on both sides of a street. A street was the axis of a “machi”. On the other hand the new guideline in 1974 adopted block conscious method. In this way streets are borders of “machi”. The former structure is similar to the traditional one of the Kyoto city. And later is found in many contemporary new towns. In this paper we analysis the position of borders of “machi”s in many land readjustment area with GIS techniques. Firstly we show the obvious difference between the two types in numeric way. Secondly we show the fact that the block conscious method had been adopted in actual land readjustment projects earlier than the new technical guideline. And we discuss reasons of the change on the concept of “machi” layout.
