Hiragana and katakana place names explained

The hiragana cities of Japan are municipalities whose names are written in hiragana rather than kanji as is traditional for Japanese place names. Many hiragana city names have kanji equivalents that are either phonetic manyōgana, or whose kanji are outside of the Joyo kanji. Others, such as Tsukuba in Ibaraki Prefecture, are taken from localities or landmarks whose names continue to be written in kanji. Yet another cause is the merger of multiple cities, one of which had the original kanji — in such cases, the hiragana place name is used to create a new identity for the merged city, distinct from the constituent city with the same kanji name.

List of fully Hiragana cities and towns

width=90Romaji
!
width=85Hiragana
!
width=60Kanji
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width=80Prefecture
AmaAichi
Fukui
Miyazaki
Hokkaidō
Ibaraki
Mie
Kōchi
Chiba
Fukushima
Ishikawa
Ibaraki
Wakayama
Gunma
Wakayama
Gunma
MiyoshiAichi
Hokkaidō
Aomori
Akita
Aomori
Fukui
Saitama
Tochigi
Kagawa
Hokkaidō
Wakayama
Hyōgo
Saitama
Aomori
Ibaraki
Ibaraki
Tokushima
Fukuoka
Okinawa

List of partially Hiragana cities

City / Town
Hiragana + Kanji
Full kanji
Prefecture
Tokyo
Kagoshima
Kagawa
Tokushima
Wakayama
Hyōgo
Shizuoka
Saitama

List of Katakana cities

Romanized
Katakana + Kanji
Prefecture
class=unsortableRemarks
from Ainu
from "Japanese Alps"