Merger and dissolution of municipalities of Japan (市町村合併; Shi-cho-son-gappei) takes place after one or more than one municipality reach consensus to do so.
March 31, 2005 was the deadline set by the revised municipality merger promotion law. The law was revised to streamline debt-ridden local governments and to create larger municipalities so more administrative power could be transferred to the local level.
On April 1, 2005, Japan had a total of 2,190 local governments. By March 31, 2006, this will further decrease to about 1,822, more than 40 percent less than the number of municipalities in 1999.
List of dissolved municipalities of Japan shows mergers and dissolutions of municipalities that took place in recent years.
