special wards of Tokyo

The special wards of Tokyo are 23 municipalities that together make up the core and the most populous part of Tokyo, Japan. Together, they occupy the land that was the city of Tokyo before it was abolished in 1943. Within the country, this type of administrative division is unique to Tokyo. In Japanese, their formal name is 特別区 (tokubetsuku, "special wards"), and collectively they are commonly known as the nijūsanku, meaning "twenty-three wards".
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