List of districts of the House of Councillors of Japan

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Map showing Japan's prefectures, which until 2015 coincided with the House of Councillors districts. In 2015, Tottori (31 on map) and Shimane (32) districts were combined as Tottori-Shimane, and Tokushima (36) and Kochi (39) districts were combined as Tokushima-Kochi.

The House of Councillors in the Japanese national Diet is made up of 245 members elected from 45 districts plus a national proportional representation list. Until 2015, there were 47 districts which coincided with the 47 prefectures of Japan.

In order to address the imbalance in voter representation between rural and urban voters, the Public Officers Election Law was amended in 2012 and again in 2015. The 2015 amendment sees the merger of the two smallest districts, Tottori and Shimane, to create a combined Tottori-Shimane at-large district, as well as the merger of Kochi and Tokushima districts (the third- and fourth-smallest districts) to create a combined Tokushima-Kōchi at-large district. Other changes to the number of Councilors have also been made to address the imbalance.[1] Below is a table of districts, sortable by name, magnitude and voter disparity, based on the official number of registered voters as of September 2015.

List of districts[]

District Registered
voters[2] 		Magnitude Disparity
Pre-reform Post-reform
Aichi 5,927,668 8
Akita 888,496 2
Aomori 1,122,948 2
Chiba 5,092,741 6
Ehime 1,169,427 2
Fukui 644,447 2
Fukuoka 4,135,977 6
Fukushima 1,607,908 2
Gifu 1,666,610 2
Gunma 1,616,400 2
Hiroshima 2,313,131 4
Hokkaido 4,537,448 6
Hyogo 4,536,912 6
Ibaraki 2,411,307 4
Ishikawa 939,531 2
Iwate 1,074,018 2
Kagawa 818,470 2
Kagoshima 1,371,073 2
Kanagawa 7,421,431 8
Kumamoto 1,473,659 2
Kyoto 2,088,383 4
Mie 1,489,396 2
Miyagi 1,907,518 2
Miyazaki 918,533 2
Nagano 1,737,214 2
Nagasaki 1,148,570 2
Nara 1,140,129 2
Niigata 1,925,565 2
Ōita 972,380 2
Okayama 1,566,428 2
Okinawa 1,115,392 2
Osaka 7,140,578 8
Saga 679,289 2
Saitama 5,933,788 7[notes 1]
Shiga 1,121,066 2
Shizuoka 3,052,579 4
Tochigi 1,621,930 2
Tokushima-Kochi 1,261,100 2
Tokyo 10,947,527 12
Tottori-Shimane 1,051,880 2
Toyama 888,832 2
Wakayama 825,373 2
Yamagata 937,920 2
Yamaguchi 1,173,848 2
Yamanashi 692,001 2
  1. ^ Will increase to 8 at the 2022 election

National PR block[]

Main article: Japanese House of Councillors national proportional representation block

In addition to the smaller districts mentioned above, the House of Councillors also has a single block for the entire nation. It elects 50 members per election (100 in total) based on the D'Hondt method.

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ "Weighing Vote Disparity in Japan's Upper House". 30 July 2015. Retrieved 29 February 2016.
  2. ^ As of 2 September 2015. "平成２７年９月２日現在選挙人名簿及び在外選挙人名簿登録者数" [Number of resident and non-resident enrolled voters as of 2 September 2015] (in Japanese). 2 September 2015. Retrieved 29 February 2016.
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