町 - Machi or Chou?

How to read the Japanese Kanji for towns, and why it differs between areas in Japan.

How to read Japanese place names? Sometimes it's not so easy to
figure out the correct reading...

As a geographer with a particular interest in the origin of place names, I was particularly fascinated with Japanese place names for the longest time.

Having spent three years on Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost island, for work, I soon learned that although the place names here too were written in Japanese Kanji, the vast majority were mostly derived from the Ainu language (Ainu being Hokkaido's indigenous population), thereby offering clues into traditional Ainu culture. As a result, the place names in Hokkaido largely ignore the modern Japanese meaning of the Kanji used, and a fairly large number of Japanese citizens from outside of Hokkaido would sometimes not know the correct reading. One of my favorite examples soon became that of the town of 長万部, which reads 'Oshamanbe', located in the island's southwestern part (for more about Hokkaido place names and their Ainu roots check out this interesting blog listing a number of examples).

But there was another peculiarity about Japanese place names that started bothering me over time. At some point I noticed how in one case the Japanese Kanji for town - 町 - would be read machi, and on another occasion it would be read chou instead (in Japan's local government system, four distinct types of municipality are recognized: 市町村 or shikuchouson, or city - town - village).

For those who are not familiar with the Japanese language: most Japanese Kanji have at least two different readings: kun yomi, or Japanese reading, and on yomi, or Chinese reading. Kun yomi is used whenever a Kanji is used synonymously with just one word in a sentence, while on yomi is generally used in the case of Kanji compounds, i.e. whenever two or more Kanji are combined to form one word. In the case of 町, the kun yomi is まち or machi, and the on yomi is ちょう or chou.

The issue was once again brought to the forefront of my mind in the wake of the devastating Noto Peninsula Earthquake on New Year’s Day 2024, when multiple towns made a regular appearance in the news coverage of the earthquake. For example, in spite of two different municipalities both being towns - and therefore both having 町 as the last kanji - the town of 志賀町 was pronounced Shikamachi, while the town of 能登町 was pronounced Notochou.

My first guess was that it may have something to do with some specific details about the administrative status of Japanese municipalities that I had just not been aware of, but this turned out not to be the case. So why would two towns that were both located on the same peninsula and within the same prefecture have different readings for the same Kanji?

It turns out that some Japanese media outlets were made aware of this very topic several years ago due to a pronounciation mistake made by former Japanese Prime Minister Kan. He had incorrectly pronounced 浪江町, a town's name in Fukushima prefecture, as Namiechou, while the officially recognized name was Namiemachi. Apparently this slip of the tongue led some journalists to further investigate the matter, hoping to clarify whether or not there was any rule that would explain the existing differences in reading. So is there a rule?

No rule - but...

Easily put, the predominant reading for towns in East Japan is usually machi, while in West Japan chou is more common, with the dividing line more or less coinciding with the prefectural borders of Ishikawa and Fukui, Nagano and Gifu, and Shizuoka and Kanagawa. In Kyushu it is pretty much of a mix - both machi and chou are in use, while in Hokkaido chou is the predominant reading. Although several Japanese scholars believe that how a particular town's name is pronounced was basically determined by local customs and traditions, a more comprehensive reason for this geographical difference in reading seems to be unclear (for those able to read Japanese, I also recommend this article by Chunichi Shimbun, including a map showing the general distribution).

One theory says that the chou reading may have been introduced during the Mejji period (1868-1912) in order to distinguish modern municipalities from such towns that dated back to the preceding Edo period, where the common reading was machi. In line with this theory, some experts believe that the predominant use of machi in East Japan even today could be linked to the fact that the Edo period's former government - the Shogunate or bakufu - had its seat in Edo, today’s Tokyo.

With growing populations and sprawling municipalities, Japan too had its fair share of municipal mergers, especially during the Meiji and Showa periods. It appears that in the process of mergers towns would often just adopt the reading that was already common for neighboring towns. In addition, prefectural governments were much more influential in the past and certainly often exerted their influence on merging towns to adopt the prevalent  reading.

More exceptions than rules

While it turns out to be hard to determine anything that would resemble a rule set for the reading of Japanese town names, it is much easier to identify a multitude of exceptions. Take the town of 阿南町 - Ananchou - for example, located in Nagano prefecture. While all other 23 towns in Nagano are pronounced machi, this one is read chou. Here it is argued that this is due to the town's proximity to Nagano's prefectural border with Aichi in the south, and because of historic ties between Aichi and Nagano's southern part, in particular in the area of forestry.

So what about the case of the towns in Japan's Noto Peninsula mentioned earlier? The machi reading has always been the predominant one in Ishikawa prefecture. However, when a merger between two towns took place in 2005, forming the new town of - 能登町 or Notochou - the chou reading was adopted instead. The two former towns were called 能都町 or Notomachi -, and 内浦町 or Uchiuramachi. The initial proposal to call the newly merged municipality Notomachi was voted down, because the pronunciation of the newly formed town's name would be indiscernible from the pre-existing town's name of Notomachi  and could therefore be confused with a town that did not even exist anymore. It further should be pointed out that in this particular case apart from the different reading for town, the Kanji for to in the formerly existing Notomachi (都) also differs from the one used in the newly merged Notochou (登) ; a difference that easily goes unnoticed when just hearing either of the town's name spoken without seeing the actual spelling.

In the same year two other towns, 押水町 or Oshimizumachi and 志雄町 or Shiomachi, also merged to form the new municipality of 宝達志水町 or Houdatsushimizuchou, but in this case it is unclear as to why the chou reading was adopted; some argue that it might just have been for easier pronounciation.

The case of Morimachi

There are two towns with the same name of 森町 - or Morimachi - in Japan; one is located in Hokkaido, the other one in Shizuoka prefecture. This further adds to the conundrum around the reading of Japanese town names, since the predominant reading in both prefectures is actually chou instead of machi. So why are both towns - in Hokkaido as well as Shizuoka - read Morimachi instead of Morichou?

The reading for the town in Shizuoka seems to be a remnant from Meiji period, when the new local government system was introduced and the former Morimachimura - mura for village (村) - would have been promoted to the status of town. However, this would have meant renaming it into Morimachimachi (with the latter machi being the designation for town), hence the name was most likely just shortened - compared to other examples, this strikes one as a seemingly banal reason for why this exception to the rule was introduced.

Hokkaido boosts a total of 129 towns, of which indeed only Morimachi is pronounced as such, while in the past Hokkaido was more of a mix between both readings. It seems that the special status of these two towns within their respective prefectures was reason enough for them to form an official municipal friendship back in 1968.

To conclude, the only thing that seems to be certain is that there are no clear rules, but that instead place names change over time, and so does their reading; depending on the prevalent trends, local and regional historic influences, and the political and socioeconomic forces at work. And simply knowing that even Japanese scholars do not always agree on why a certain town would be read in one or the other way made me worry a little less about the next time I might make a mistake when reading out loud the name of a town somewhere in Japan...