This research note provides some discussion about the features in the physical and human damages, based mainly on the field surveys and paying special attention to their relationships to spatial difference in geo-environments, in/around Banda Aceh, Indonesia, which was devastated by the giant tsunami offnorthwestern Sumatra Island on 26 December 2004. Tsunami waves on the Aceh Coastal Plain were gradually declined, basically dependent on the distance from the coastline, with some minor spatial variations according to the micro-topographies, which reflect on the spatial differentiation in local damages.

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To make preparations for decentralization, which is regarded as one of the objects of municipal merger, it is essential not only to enlarge the scale of a local government, but also to establish a firm basis of governance. The idea of governance is based upon the efforts of local people to pay closer attention to, make a study of, get to know, and think about their own region, and it is Geography, in particular, its comprehensive perspectives and research methods, that greatly contribute to this. Our efforts to the establishment of governance have just got started and more and more contributions of Geographers are very much expected to further community development.

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The social and economic circumstances of Japanese women have drastically changed over the past two decades. These changes are partly reflected in the feminization of labor, which means the rising rate of working women. In particular, the number of unmarried or never-married women has increased in metropolitan areas. This reflects the fact that more than a few women postpone marriage to continue working in full-time jobs to avoid career breaks. This trend has been enhanced by the improved working conditions of career women after the Equal Employment Opportunity Law was enacted in 1986. As a result, the life-courses and life styles of Japanese women have drastically changed and diversified. Our research group has been attempting to clarify the conditions affecting the work and life of women living in Tokyo Metropolitan Area focusing on their residential choices. This paper summarizes our major findings based on a book entitled “Urban Spaces of Working Women in Tokyo”. Major topics described are relationship between the life-stage and residential choices, typology of working women according to their life styles, and purchases of condominiums by single women and their backgrounds.

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