Hiroshima Prefecture

Hiroshima-ken ; 広島県
Basic data
Administrative headquarters :	Hiroshima
Region :	Chūgoku
Main island :	Honshu
Area :	8,479.64 km²
Water content:	0.3 %
Residents :	2,811,410 ; (June 1, 2019)
Population density :	332 inhabitants per km²
Counties :	5
Municipalities :	23
ISO 3166-2 :	JP-34
Governor :	Hidehiko Yuzaki
Website:	www.pref.hiroshima.lg.jp
Symbols
Prefecture flag :
Prefecture tree :	maple
Prefecture flower :	maple
Vogel prefecture :	Red-throated divers
Fish prefecture :	oyster
Prefecture song :	Aoi sora nara

The Hiroshima Prefecture ( Jap. 広島県 , Hiroshima-ken ) is a prefecture in Japan , in 1871 formed the Principality of Hiroshima (Hiroshima-han) , which since 1876 the provinces of Aki and Bingo includes. It is located in the Chūgoku region mainly on the island of Honshū . The seat of the prefecture administration is the city of the same name Hiroshima (Hiroshima-shi) .

geography

Osorakanzan

The Utsumi Bridge (Prefecture Road 53) in Fukuyama connects the Numakuma Peninsula of Honshu with Tajima, one of the offshore islands in the Inland Sea.

Hiroshima is located in the center of the Chūgoku region in western Japan on the south side of the Chūgoku Mountains on the coast of the Seto Inland Sea . The most important river is the Ōtagawa , at whose mouth the city of Hiroshima lies. In the east the Ashidagawa flows into the city of Fukuyama. Large parts of Hiroshima consist of mountains, the highest point is the Osorakanzan at 1346 m on the border with Shimane. Hiroshima also has over 100 islands in the inland sea.

Parts of the prefecture belong to the Seto Inland Sea National Park , and the quasi-national parks Hiba-Dōgō-Taishaku and Western Chūgoku Mountains (Nishi-Chūgoku-sanchi) are also partly in Hiroshima. There are also six prefectural nature parks in Hiroshima.

history

The name of the prefecture comes from Hiroshima Castle , which was built in 1589 , the principality (- han ) Hiroshima ruled from there and the city that developed around the castle. The prefecture of Hiroshima emerged from the principality when the principalities were abolished in 1871, it soon absorbed further prefectures that emerged from the principalities in the provinces of Aki and Bingo - adjusted for en- and exclaves - and essentially reached its current borders in 1876.

When the municipal regulations were modernized in 1888/89, over 450 municipalities were created in Hiroshima, including the capital Hiroshima as the only independent city (- shi ) .

politics

Political groups in the prefectural parliament
(as of 23 May 2019)

A total of 64 seats

Jimin giren ( LDP ): 33
Minshu Kenseikai ( DVP , Independent): 14
Jimintō Kōshikai / Tsubasa (LDP): 7
Kōmeitō : 6
Jiminkai (LDP): 1
KPY : 1
Jimin Daishikai (LDP): 1
Hiroshima Reiwakai: 1

The governor of Hiroshima is Hidehiko Yuzaki . He was first elected in 2009 with the support of the supporters of his predecessor Yūzan Fujita against the prefectural parliamentarian Anri Kawai and three other candidates and was confirmed for a third term in the gubernatorial election on November 12, 2017 with the support of the three largest established parties, the only opposing candidate was the communist Atsumi Takami. In parliament, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) remained clearly the strongest party in the April 2019 elections with 32 of the 64 seats. However, the LDP MPs, along with some of the 24 non-party MPs, are spread across several parliamentary groups.

In the national parliament , Hiroshima is represented by seven directly elected members in the Chamber of Deputies : In 2017 the LDP won all but one constituency, Kōji Satō from the Party of Hope (now part of the DVP parliamentary group) won Hiroshima 6 with the cities of Onomichi and Mihara. The prefecture elects two representatives per election to the council house and will be represented after the 2016 and 2019 elections by the liberal democrats Yōichi Miyazawa and Anri Kawai and the DVP MPs Minoru Yanagida and Shinji Morimoto .

tourism

The biggest tourist attraction outside the prefecture capital is Itsukushima Island, also called Miyajima , which, together with Amanohashidate and Matsushima, is one of the three most beautiful landscapes in Japan .

The most visited tourist destination in Hiroshima is Peace Park, which was the site of the epicenter of the atomic bomb explosion . There is a peace memorial museum and numerous monuments in the Peace Park.

Administrative division

Main building complex of the prefecture administration in Naka-ku of Hiroshima city.

With the introduction of the modern parishes in 1889, Hiroshima Prefecture consisted of an independent city, 13 small towns and 451 villages. Through incorporations and mergers, the number of municipalities fell from 432 (1920) through 177 (1955) to 107 in 1975.
Since 2016, the prefecture has been divided into 14 independent cities ( Shi ) and 9 small towns ( Chō ) in 5 counties ( Gun ) . Hiroshima as the seat of the prefecture administration has been a “designated city” since 1980 , two other cities in the prefecture (Fukuyama and Kure) are “core cities” ( chūkakushi ).
In the table below, the districts ( 郡 ) are shown in italics, with the small towns ( 町 ) below them (indented) . The prefectural affiliation of a municipality can be seen in the first two digits of the local authority code. Hiroshima-ken is JP-34. The third digit indicates the form of the church. Since the districts are still used as a statistical unit, codes were also assigned to them, although they were abolished as an administrative unit as early as the 1920s. These are round and have been grouped with the municipalities belonging to the district as consecutive numbers. However, the regional reforms of the last few decades created gaps in many places.

code	Surname		Area (in km²)	population	Population density (inh / km²)
code	Rōmaji	Kanji	October 1, 2017 ¹	October 1, 2019 ³	October 1, 2015 ²
34100	Hiroshima- shi	広島市	906.68	1,199,391	1,194,034	1316.93
34202	Kure- shi	呉市	352.80	218.351	228,552	647.82
34203	Takehara- shi	竹原市	118.23	24,496	26,426	223.51
34204	Mihara- shi	三原市	471.55	91,604	96.194	204.00
34205	Onomichi- shi	尾道市	285.11	132,675	138,626	486.22
34207	Fukuyama- shi	福山市	518.14	462.203	464.811	897.08
34208	Fuchsu- shi	府中市	195.75	37,874	40,069	204.69
34209	Miyoshi- shi	三次市	778.14	51,049	53,615	68.90
34210	Shobara- shi	庄原市	1246.49	34,432	37,000	29.68
34211	Ōtake -shi	大竹市	78.66	26,796	27,865	354.25
34212	Higashihiroshima- shi	東広島市	635.16	195,805	192.907	303.71
34213	Hatsukaichi- shi	廿日市市	489.48	114.975	114.906	234.75
34214	Akitakata- shi	安芸高田市	537.75	27,894	29,488	54.84
34215	Etajima- shi	江田島市	100.70	22,259	24,339	241.70
34300	Aki-gun	安芸郡	73.66		116.222	1577.82
34302	Fuchu- cho	府中町	10.41	51,196	51,053	4904.23
34304	Kaita-cho	海田町	13.79	29,431	28,667	2078.83
34307	Kumano-cho	熊野町	33.76	23,081	23,755	703.64
34309	Saka-cho	坂町	15.69	12,762	12,747	812.43
34360	Yamagata-gun	山県郡	988.09		25,390	25.70
34368	Akiōta-chō	安芸太田町	341.89	5805	6472	18.93
34369	Kitahiroshima-chō	北広島町	646.20	18,120	18,918	29.28
34420	Toyota gun	豊田郡	43.11		7992	185.39
34431	Ōsakikamijima-chō	大崎上島町	43.11	7510	7992	185.39
34460	Sera-gun	世羅郡	278.14		16,337	58.74
34462	Sera-cho	世羅町	278.14	15,318	16,337	58.74
34540	Jinseki-gun	神石郡	381.98		9217	24.13
34545	Jinsekikōgen-chō	神石高原町	381.98	8383	9217	24.13

Shi-bu ( All shi , part of urban districts)	市部	6714.66	2,647,398	2,668,832	397.46
Gun-bu ( All gun , proportion of counties)	郡部	1764.97	172,564	175.158	99.24
34000	Hiroshima-ken (Hiroshima Prefecture)	広島県	8479.63	2,819,962	2,843,990	335.39

swell

¹ Area data from 2017
² Results of the 2015 census
³ Estimated population 2018

Largest independent cities

Existing and former cities (-shi)
Census year	Residents
2015	2010	2005	2000
Hiroshima	1,194,034	1,173,843	1,154,391	1,126,239
Fukuyama	464.811	461.357	418.509	378.789
Cure	228,552	239.973	251.003	203.159
Higashihiroshima	192.907	190.135	184,430	123.423
Onomichi	138,626	145.202	114,486	92,586
Hatsukaichi	114.906	114.038	87,144	73,587
Mihara	96.194	100.509	104.196	82,081
Miyoshi	53,615	56,605	59,314	39.503
Fuchu	40,069	42,563	45.188	41,271
Shobara	37,000	40,244	43,149	21,370
Akitakata	29,488	31,487	33.096	——
Otake	27,865	28,836	30,279	31,405
Takehara	26,426	28,644	30,657	31,935
Etajima	24,339	27,031	29,939	——
Innoshima	——	——	26,677	28,187

March 1, 2004 - 6 municipalities merge to form Akitakata .
November 1, 2004 - 6 municipalities merge to form independent city Etajima ..
January 10, 2006 - The City Innoshima is in the independent city of Onomichi incorporated.

Population development in the prefecture

Census population
Census year	Total population	male population	female population	Gender ratio men to 1000 women	Area in km ²	Population density per km ²
1920	1,541,905	775.080	766.825	1011	8436.52	182.8
1925	1,617,680	818.266	799.414	1024	8436.52	191.8
1930	1,692,136	856.737	835.399	1026	8436.52	200.6
1935	1,804,916	914.185	890.731	1026	8436.52	213.9
1940	1,869,504	936.936	932,568	1005	8436.52	221.6
1945	1,885,471	878.343	1,007,128	872	8436.52	223.5
1950	2,081,967	1,015,955	1,066,012	953	8422.16	247.2
1955	2,149,044	1,047,184	1,101,860	950	8431.22	254.9
1960	2,184,043	1,058,829	1,125,214	941	8431.23	259.0
1965	2,281,146	1,107,878	1,173,268	944	8437.99	270.3
1970	2,436,135	1,188,270	1,247,865	952	8447.33	288.4
1975	2,646,324	1,296,677	1,349,647	961	8455.18	313.0
1980	2,739,161	1,336,806	1,402,355	953	8462.88	323.7
1985	2,819,200	1,373,853	1,445,347	951	8466.37	333.0
1990	2,849,847	1,385,297	1,464,550	946	8473.41	336.3
1995	2,881,748	1,398,986	1,482,762	944	8474.76	340.0
2000	2,878,915	1,392,496	1,486,419	937	8476.95	339.6
2005	2,876,642	1,390,190	1,486,452	935	8477.92	339.3
2010	2,860,750	1,380,671	1,480,079	933	8479.58	337.4
2015	2,843,990	1,376,211	1,467,779	938	8479.45	335.4

Demographics

Population development of the communities in Hiroshima between the 2005 and 2010 censuses, increase in green, decrease in red

In the five-year period between the 1995 and 2000 censuses, the prefectural population declined for the first time and has continued to decline slowly since then. However, some communities are still recording population growth, in the five-year period from 2005 to 2010 the cities of Hiroshima, Eastern Hiroshima, Fukuyama and Saka.

police

The Hiroshima Police Department is the largest prefectural police force in Chūgoku with over 5,000 officers. There are 28 police stations across the prefecture and a total of almost 300 urban and rural police stations ( kōban and chūzaishō ). As in all prefectures, the police are under the supervision of the Prefectural Public Security Commission (ken kōan iinkai) , which in Hiroshima has five members with three-year terms; three are appointed by the governor with the consent of parliament, two are nominated by the mayor and parliament of the city of Hiroshima, which as a designated city has special say. The Hiroshima Police Headquarters and Security Commission are located in the east building of the Prefectural Administration.