Welcome to the Districts and municipalities task force, a joint taskforce of WikiProject Japan and WikiProject Cities. The purpose of this task force is to maintain consistency on all Japan-related district and municipality pages on Wikipedia. This includes making sure each one has the appropriate infobox, making sure the {{nihongo}} template is used appropriately, making sure the article cites its references, and making sure the article is in accordance with the stated scope of WikiProject Japan.
Scope
[edit]All municipalities and districts in Japan fall within the scope of this task force.
Article setup
[edit]Naming
[edit]Romanization should always follow the guidelines found in the Manual of Style. Each municipality should be named {Municipality name}, {Prefecture name}. The prefecture name should be capitalized (e.g., Hiroshima, Hiroshima and Sapporo, Hokkaidō). The only exceptions are listed on the Manual of Style page.
When more than one municipality within a prefecture share the same name, use the district name in parentheses to disambiguate names (e.g.,Asahi, Yamagata (Nishimurayama) and Azuma, Gunma (Seta)). If the name conficts with another municipality's name, use "city", "town", or "village" with all lowercase letters instead of the name of the district to which it belongs (e.g., Echizen, Fukui (town)).
Each district should be named {District name} District, {Prefecture name} (e.g., Aki District, Hiroshima). See Districts of Japan#Confusing cases in Hokkaido for exceptional cases where two districts share the same English name within the same subprefecture.
For districts/areas within the special wards of Tokyo and other towns/cities, articles should be titled {District name}, {Special ward/town/city name}. For example, Higashi, Shibuya and Motomachi, Yokohama. If disambiguation is necessary, the prefecture name can be added after the ward/city/town name.
Template and general article layout
[edit]All municipalities should use the {{Infobox settlement}}. You can see an example of its use at Funabashi, Chiba.
Guidelines for layout are found here.
Dissolved municipalities and districts
[edit]In recent years, literally thousands of municipalities of Japan have merged, forming hundreds of new towns and cities. Wikipedia has an article on every city, town, village, district, and prefecture in Japan, thousands of which should be updated to reflect this merger activity. What is needed is:
- For each city, town, village, district dissolved by merger:
- Change to past tense
- Mention merger, specifically what it merged into
- (except districts) Add to [[Category:Dissolved municipalities of (prefecture)]], for instance Category:Dissolved municipalities of Ehime Prefecture; remove existing [[Category:Towns/Villages in (prefecture]]
- For districts, add [[Category:Former districts of (prefecture)]], and remove existing [[Category:Districts in (prefecture)]]
- If towns/villages merge into existing city, update (increase) the city's population and size and density (and mention merger)
- Update External Links section, point to merged municipality's website
- For each city or town created by merger:
- Add at least a stub, mentioning how/when it was formed ("founded on <date> from the merger of ....")
- District article
- Update population, size, and density if towns/villages merged into cities
- Update list of towns and villages
- Add or update section about mergers
- Prefecture article
- Update lists of cities, districts, towns, villages
- Update municipality/district counts in infobox
- Add or update section about mergers
- Prefecture navigational template
- Update lists of cities, districts
- Prefectures of Japan
- Update municipality/district counts in table
- List of dissolved municipalities of Japan
- Update
- List of cities in Japan
- Update (add new cities, delete dissolved cities, update population stats)
- Disambiguation articles (find by What Links Here)
- Update as appropriate
- Miscellaneous other articles (find by What Links Here)
- Update as appropriate
I have been systematically working through the prefectures making updates as above for many months (more than a year) and am only up to Miyazaki Prefecture.
The Japanese Wikipedia articles are generally up to date. Another source I've found that is generally up to date (and includes links to every municipality's web site) is https://web.archive.org/web/20090106180318/http://www.fuzita.org/link/linkse/prefecturee.html.
Please help!
Rick Block (talk) 14:45, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Task force participants
[edit]Emeritus members
[edit]These are significant contributors in good standing to the project who have become inactive or passed away.
Similar projects
[edit]Projects with a similar scope are: