After the World War II, the realignment of local municipal areas in Japan was enforced in order to improve the financial situation of municipalities. It reduced the number of municipalities drastically in three years by enlarging municipal areas. In terms of spatial organization, many new municipal areas consisted of a town (cho) and some villages (son). The purpose of this paper is to explain, as an example, why such a feature of the realignment was found in Naka-dori, Fukushima Prefecture.
The first official guideline for the realignment was presented on the recommendation of the Kanbe Committee in 1949. From the financial and administrative points of view, the recommendation said that the standard population of a new municipality should be 7, 000 to 8, 000, and gave a negative opinion on the iocorporation of rural villages into a city (shi) or a town. The central government, however, had an intention to decrease the number of municipalities with small populations because of national finance, and directed the prefectures and the municipalities to increase population of new municipalities over 8, 000 to as large as possible, when the law for the realignment was established in 1953. Simultaneously, the central government indicated, as a means of the realignment, that municipalities with small population should be annexed to a city or a town with over 8, 000 people, and encouraged the prefectural governments to incorporate villages into a city or a town. Meanwhile, some governmental officials of the Agency of Local Autonomy stated that the ideal re-formation was the amalgamation of a town functioning as a central place and villages surrounding and having socio-economic relations to it.
In this paper, we discuss how the realignment was applied to the planned and realized realignment in Naka-dori, where 37 municipalities functioning as central places were dispersed. Before the establishment of the law in 1953, few central places were included in new municipal areas planned by the prefectural government. But after the law was enforced, the prefectural plan of realignment was changed often. In the final prefectural plan in 1954, almost all the central places were included in new municipal areas, and the average population of new municipalities (22, 041) was the largest of all the prefectural plans made. This meant that the prefectural government followed the directions of the central government faithfully. That is, in the final plan, many new municipal areas consisted of a city or a town as a central place and some villages surrounding it.
After 1954, the final plan came into effect. Although not all the new municipal areas were re-formed as planned, the feature of the realignment in the final plan stated above was kept in new municipal areas. In this way, the objective of the central and the prefectural government was roughly achieved. It can be said that the enforcement of the realignment in Naka-dori, was influenced not only by the directions of the governmental sector, but also by actual socio-economic relations between a central place and its peripheral areas.

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This paper attempts to clarify the change of present rural areas, emphasizing the functions of rural communities and their spatial structure.
In former studies, the main objects of study were the regional units of rural settlements and their spatial structure, the spatial patterns of rural settlements in accordance with the distance from the city, and so on, and they were analyzed separately. In this study I try to understand qualitatively how the regional units of rural settlements and their spatial structures have changed in relation to urbanization.
Cluster analysis was applied to clarify the positions of various rural settlements in the area between Hiroshima City in Hiroshima Prefecture and Iwami Town in Shimane Prefecture, and 4 regional divisions were obtained. The case study districts in each regional division are the following: Midorii District in Sato Town, Asaminami Ward, Hiroshima City (a suburbanizing rural area); Mita District in Shiraki Town, Asakita Ward, Hiroshima City (an urban fringe rural area); Hara District in Toyohira Town, Hiroshima Prefecture (an agriculture-continuing rural area outside the urban area); Hiwa District in Iwami Town, Shimane Prefecture (a rural community with a weakening agricultural base outside the urban area). In these districts, through the spatial and functional changes of three kinds of community groups (the fundamental community group, the wide community group and the inner settlement community group), the change of regional strcture in relation to the distance from the city was examined.
As a result the following points were clarified:
1) On the whole, rural areas experienced the phenomena of depopulation and increasing side work, and their regional differences were caused by differences in job opportunities and accessibility to the city. In the depopulated areas a long distance from the city, the community groups have been reorganized, and in the areas where population has increased and agricultural land use has decreased, rurality has suffeved.
2) The reorganization of the fundamental community group has appeared according to population-increase or depopulation. In the populated areas the fundamental community group tended to divide, and in the depopulated areas is tended to unify. In both areas the self-governmental functions have been maintained, but agricultural functions retreated.
3) The wide community group is characterazed by spatial expansion and the loss of agricultural functions. On the one hand, in the depopulated areas the schools tend to amalgamate but the Shinto shrines have maintained their traditional spatial units.
4) On the whole, inner settlement community group are tending to disappear. They only function as the smallest units of the administrative organization in community groups. The functions of traditional mutual aid and the agricultural functions have been reduced. A primary factor in this process is the spread of the urban life style.

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