Paper short abstract:

Since 1889 Japan is one of those countries which frequently reduced the number of municipalities with municipal merger policies. Research focuses on the situation in Japan proper, excluding her colonies. This paper examines Japanese municipal merger policy in her largest colony, Korea (1910-1945).

Paper long abstract:

Since 1889 Japan belongs to those countries which frequently reduced their number of municipalities (shi-chō-son) by conducting large scale municipal mergers (shi-chō-son gappei). Three of those policies were carried out nationwide under direct supervision by the central government. those were the "great municipal merger of the Meiji era (meiji no daigappei)" in 1889, the "great municipal merger of the Showa era (shōwa no daigappei)" in the 1950s, and the "great municipal merger of the Heisei era (heisei no daigappei)" in the 2000s. Between those three great mergers voluntary mergers of municipalities occurred throughout the country. All this reduced the number of municipalities in Japan proper from about 75,000 in 1888 to about 1,500 in 2014.

Research on municipal mergers in Japan was carried out by researchers from many fields in the humanities, like political science, social science, history, or economics, to name a few. Research on the situation in imperial Japan before 1945 has one thing in common: it is focused on Japan proper (the so-called "naichi") and completely neglects the overseas holdings, or colonies, of Japan (the so-called "gaichi").

However, to get a complete and comprehensive view of modern Japan's municipal merger policy, inclusion of her colonies into the picture is necessary. This paper aims to put the situation of municipal merger policy of imperial Japan in Korea in the spotlight. Korea was not only Japan's largest colony but also her gateway to Asia.

Japan did not change the structure of local government units completely, nor did it adapt Korea's municipal structure to the one in Japan proper. However, as South Korean researchers like Kim Pyŏng-mun (2010) or Yi Kwang-u (2016) have shown, municipal mergers and other forms of restructuring were carried out by the Japanese administrators. However, research by Japanese or Western researchers are almost non-existent, with the exception of one paper each by Aono Masaaki and Yamada Kōhei which were both published in 1990.

This paper aims to end this neglect of the situation in the local government units of colonial Korea, to provide new aspects in the discussion about Japan as an colonial empire.