List_of_Districts_of_the_House_of_Representatives_of_Japan

List of districts of the House of Representatives of Japan

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As of 2021^[update], the House of Representatives of Japan is elected from a combination of multi-member districts and single-member districts, a method called Parallel voting. Currently, 176 members are elected from 11 multi-member districts (called proportional representation blocks or PR blocks) by a party-list system of proportional representation (PR), and 289 members are elected from single-member districts, for a total of 465. 233 seats are therefore required for a majority. Each PR block consists of one or more prefectures, and each prefecture is divided into one or more single-member districts. In general, the block districts correspond loosely to the major regions of Japan, with some of the larger regions (such as Kantō) subdivided.

Districts of the House of Representatives

History

Main article: 1994 Japanese electoral reform

Until the 1993 general election, all members of the House of Representatives were elected in multi-member constituencies by single non-transferable vote. In 1994, Parliament passed an electoral reform bill that introduced the current system of parallel voting in single-member constituencies and proportional voting blocks.^[1] The original draft bill in 1993 by the anti-LDP coalition of Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa included proportional party list voting on a national scale, an equal number of proportional and district seats (250 each) and the possibility of split voting. However, the bill stalled in the House of Councillors.^[2] After the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had returned to power later that year, it was changed to include proportional voting in regional blocks only, the number of proportional seats was reduced, but the possibility to cast two separate votes was kept in the bill. The electoral reform law was finally passed in 1994. It was first applied in the 1996 general election.

Redistricting and reapportionment

Amendments to the electoral law in 2002^[3] and 2013^[4] changed the boundaries of single-member districts and reapportioned seats between prefectures (+5/-5 in 2002; +0/-5 in 2013, resulting in a net change of -5 in district seats in the House of Representatives to 295 and overall seats to 475). The borders of the regional proportional blocks have never changed, but the apportionment of seats to the regional proportional blocks changed in 2000 after the number of proportional seats had been reduced from 200 to 180 (reducing the total number of seats in the lower house from 500 to 480),^[5] and in the 2002 reapportionment.

Another reapportionment was passed by the National Diet in June 2017. In the majoritarian segment, it will change 97 districts in 19 prefectures, six are eliminated without replacement (one each in Aomori, Iwate, Mie, Nara, Kumamoto and Kagoshima). In the proportional segment, four "blocks" lose a seat each (Tōhoku, N. Kantō, Kinki, Kyūshū). Thus, the number of majoritarian seats is reduced to 289, the number of proportional seats to 176, the House of Representatives overall shrinks to 465. The reform takes effect one month after promulgation, i.e. on July 16, 2017.^[6]^[7]

Hokkaidō (8 block seats)

The block constituency for Hokkaidō (比例北海道ブロック) elects 8 members proportionally. It contains only Hokkaidō Prefecture, which is divided into 12 single-member districts.