Japanese Addressing System

Japanese Addressing System


Most of the streets in Japan have no name.


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The Japanese addressing system is used to identify a specific location in Japan. When written in Japanese characters, addresses start with the largest geographical entity and proceed to the most specific one.

When written in Latin characters, addresses follow the convention used by most Western addresses and start with the smallest geographic entity (typically a house number) and proceed to the largest.

The Japanese system is complex and idiosyncratic, the product of the natural growth of urban areas instead of the systems used in cities laid out as grids and divided into quadrants or districts.