The purpoes of this paper is to make clear locational processes of protestant churches in Japan. In order to clarify these processes, the author firstly analysed locational processes at prefectural level. Secondly, he investigated locational processes at city level in the Kanto District during Meiji period and especially examined whether hierarchical effect and neighbourhood effect observed on these processes or not. The results obtained are summarized as follows; 1) In the early Meiji period, at first the protestant churches were located settlemets of foreigners. In late Meiji period, protestant churches diffused in most of major cities in Japan. After that, the establishment of protestant churches tended to concetrate in larger cities. 2) The hierarchical effect of urban centers was observed on locational processes of protestant churches in the Kanto District during Meiji period. That is, the location of protestant churches tended to begin with the higher order centres and then with the lower order. In the Kanto District, it makes a difference on locatinal processes between the western and eastern part. That is, protestant churches were located earlier in West than in East Kanto District. It seems to reflect that West Kanto District was a silk producing area and traded in silk with merchants in Tokyo and Yokohama. 3) In Gunma prefecture, where protestant churches located earlier than the other prefectures in Kanto district except Tokyo and Kanagawa, hierarchical effect and neighborhood effect were observed on locational processes of protestant churches.

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Suburbanization of housing estates have started in 1950s in Japan. In 1968, the City Planning Act was largely amended in order to restrict urban sprawl. The new act have started to control the developments of housing estates in surrounding area of the city by zoning of the city planning area. There are three types of zones in the area, Urbarnization Promotion Zone(UPZ), Urbarnization Control Zone(UCZ) and Unzoned City Planning Area (UCPA). The land use changes and urbanization process are well known in UPZ and UCZ, but we have few researches on land use changes in UCPA that has looser restriction than Urbanization Control Zone on developments of housing estates. The present paper intends to consider housing estates developed after establishing the city planning area as compared with before from the viewpoints of their development process and their land use, and to appreciate the effects of establishment of the city planning area on housing estates. Kurose-cho is located on northern suburbs of Kure city. Urbanization of this city has spilled over into Kurose since 1970s, and many housing estates have been developed in the town. Therefore, unzoned city planning area was established in the whole area in 1976. The results of the investigations are as follows; 1. Before the establishment of the city planning area (before 1976): City planning areas were established in cities and towns around Kurose-cho, but there were neither restrictions nor controls on developments of housing estates in Kurose. Many housing estates were developed in the town after 1970. They are over 2 hectare in size and were developed by small and medium scale developers in general. However, some of their estates did not have good facilities for building houses, and some developers went bankrupt. There were few landowners who built their houses, because some of them wanted to build their houses in the future. 2. After the establishment of the city planning area (after 1976): City planning area was established in the town as Unzoned City Planning Area. Developments of housing estates are regulated by the act, and they were divided into two types. one is large scale estates over 5 hectare in size developed by large scale developers and the other is small scale estates under 0.3 hectare by small scale developers. The former is located on the hill and the foot of mountains, and the latter is mainly located scatteredly on paddy fields. Landowners were able to build their houses in some of the estates developed before 1976, and to build houses were prohibited in the others. In the latter cases, the housing estate councils had to get the permission after reclaiming their estates. 3. There is a drastic distinction in the land use between housing estates developed before and after 1976. It is a distinctive feature that there are many vacant lots in the estates developed before 1976. There are few regulations on land use of the lots by the city planning act, so that landowners are able to use them on other purposes except that developers limited the use. There are possibilities that the lots will be transferred to factories or warehouses. On the contrary, they have few vacant lots and have many commercial facilities in the large scale estates developed after 1976. 4. There are many landowners who do not live in each housing estate. Many of them moved their houses from the estates developed before 1976 to the outer areas of Kure city such as Hiroshima city and three metropolitan regions, because they were moved to other cities, and to build houses were prohibited in their estates. In the estates developed after 1976, some of the landowners bought their lots on a speculation, because their lots were in condition to sell them at a high price.

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