Abstract
Since 1999, the Government has promoted consolidation of municipalities, resulting in an emergence of very largely merged cities, which administrative areas are 800 km2 or over. This study aims at clarifying characteristics of the largely merged cities and examining their urban and regional policies from the view points of (1) integration, (2) coordination and collaboration among the sub-districts, (3) promotion of each of the sub-districts and (4) decentralization and local autonomy. This study clarifies that the largely merger of municipalities makes it easy to coordinate regional policies, but the largely merged cities must cope with contradictive issues such as rationalizing public services and maintaining a base of autonomous conditions of their sub-districts.
