Addressing system
07/06/2007
In Japan, it's really easy to get confused the first time you're looking for an address on a map and believe me, understanding Japanese doesn't help. I had to deal with that when I was looking for an apartment. Here's an exemple so you can understand the problem. Look at that map, a close-up shot of a Nagoya district:
Do you get it? Yes...it seems they forgot to write the street names! But actually no...if the names are missing, it's because apart from the main ones, the streets have no name (as if U2 were inspired by Japan...).
The Japanese addressing system is not based on streets and numbers but on areas, sub-areas, sub-sub-areas etc. Here's a concrete example with my current address in its full form: 愛知県名古屋市中区丸の内１丁目７番５号. Written in roman letters: Aichi-ken (愛知-県), Nagoya-shi (名古屋-市), Naka-ku (中-区), Marunouchi (丸の内) 1-chome (１丁目), 7-ban (７番), 5-go (５号). Let's have a look at each component.
Aichi-ken is the prefecture (there are 47 prefectures in Japan). Next comes Nagoya-shi and you don't need to be a genius to understand what it means...
Naka-ku is the ward:
If I counted well, there are 16 wards in Nagoya. Marunouchi is the district inside the ward. Marunouchi is not renowned for its nightlife, but more for all the companies that are implanted there (perfect for me, plus it's really close to Sakae where all the nightlife is concentrated). It is in turn divided in sub-districts, each one being assigned a number, number 1 (1-chome) in my case:
Close-up shot:
We're almost done. Each block in the sub-district has a number, 7 for me (7-ban):
And to conclude, each house/building has a number (in red on the map), mine is 5 (5-go):
And that's it! Do you think it is complicated? That was definitely my first impression, but it's quite fast to get used to it. Of course it may take time if you're directly searching on the map, but if you use the supplied index it goes pretty fast:
It allows you to directly spot Marunouchi. Now you know everything! Well almost, actually that was just an example and depending on the area, the naming conventions and number of sub-divisions vary, but that block principle remains the same. In case you're crazy enough to be interested in learning more about the addressing system, you can check out this link.
Category: Everyday life
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