5. Areas

DIDs

Densely Inhabited District which is often referred to as DID and is defined as an area a city, town or village that is composed of a groups of contiguous basic unit blocks each of which has a population density of about 4,000 inhabitants or more per square kilometer, and whose total population exceeds 5,000 as of October 1, 2000.

Major Metropolitan Areas

"Major Metropolitan Areas" in this survey apply those established in the 2000 Population Census. The criteria for establishing "Major Metropolitan Areas" is as follows:

(1) Central cities

The central cities of the major metropolitan areas a Ku-area of Tokyo-to and the cities designated by the Cabinet Order. In case that two or more central cities are located closely each other, the major metropolitan areas are not established separately but chained together.

(2) Surrounding cities, towns and villages

A city, town or village is considered as composing the surrounding cities, towns and villages when it satisfies the following condition:i) The number of resident workers and students 15 years of age and over commuting to the central cities is 1.5 percent or more of its total resident population, and ii) The area is contiguous to the central cities or to one defined as the surrounding area. In case that the administrative unit area, where under 1.5 percent of the resident population commute to the central cities, is entirely enclosed by the areas defined as surrounding area, it is also regarded as a surrounding area.

(3) The major metropolitan areas established in the 2000 Census are as follows:

Sapporo Major Metropolitan Area
Sendai Major Metropolitan Area
Kanto Major Metropolitan Area
Cyukyo Major Metropolitan Area
Keihanshin Major Metropolitan Area
Hiroshima Major Metropolitan Area
Kitakyushu-Fukuoka Major Metropolitan Area

Range of Distance

Range of distance stated here refer to one of area classification and they cover the area of municipalities located in every 10 kilometers range of distance divided by concentric circles by each major city municipal office (*Tokyo-to, Nagoya-shi and Osaka-shi). As the radius of the largest concentric circle, 70 kilometers were used for Tokyo, 50 kilometers for Nagoya and Osaka respectively.
Municipalities on the circumference of the concentric circles were in principal included into the range of distance in which areas of the municipalities occupied most wide.
*In this survey, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government is regarded to exist at the former building in Chiyoda-ku.