Center for Research and Education in Program Evaluation (CREPE), University of Tokyo

Geographic templates of Japan for maptile

We have made the geographic templates of Japan available in maptile, a map creation program for stata. For example, you can make a map like this easily.

The templates for Japan can be installed by running the commands:

What is maptile?

It is a stata program written by Michael Stepner that makes mapping easy. It divides the areas on the map into groups (such as state, county, province) and shades them according to the value of the variable. The map itself is drawn using geography templates, which can be downloaded here. Now, there are 18 templates of United States and Canada.

Once you install maptile and geographic templates, you can make your maps anytime without any further installation. Michael Stepner provides a detailed introduction of maptile at this slide deck. Here, we skip the introduction so please look at this page.

Geographic template: jpn_pref

jpn_pref generates a map of Japan prefectures. This template does not display Northern Territories and Ogasawara Village for ease of viewing.

Geographic ID

You need to check whether your dataset contains a proper geographic ID, which associates each observation with an area group. If no geographic ID is specified, the default ID will be used.

To-do-fu-ken (prefecture) identification code (JIS X0401) is used as prefecture code. JIS X0401 is the latter part of ISO 3166-2:JP after a hyphen, which is another common identification code of prefecture. Type names of prefectures (i.e., To, Fu, Ken) are removed from prefname and prefname_jpn (e.g., Tokyo-to → Tokyo).

Reference:
https://www.soumu.go.jp/denshijiti/code.html
https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:code:3166:JP
https://nlftp.mlit.go.jp/ksj-e/gml/codelist/PrefCd.html

Options

Option: simple

With this option, the map only displays large islands greater than 500 squared kilometers. Since there are tons of small islands in Japan, it makes your map simpler.

Option: compressed

This option moves Okinawa prefecture to the top left of the map, making it "compressed".

These options can be used together.

Geographic template: jpn_mun series

jpn_mun2000, ..., jpn_mun2015 generate a map of Japanese municipalities in each resepective year. The boundaries are based on the Population Census conducted on October 1 of each year. For example, jpn_mun2015 is the map of municipalities as of October 1, 2015. Those templates do not display the Northern Territories or Ogasawara Village for ease of viewing.

Data: population density from 2015 Population Census

Geographic ID

You need to check whether your dataset contains a proper geographic ID, which associates each observation with an area group.

Si-ku-cho-son (municipality) identification code (JIS X0402) is used as municipality code. Check digit is not included.

Reference:
https://www.soumu.go.jp/denshijiti/code.html
https://nlftp.mlit.go.jp/ksj-e/gml/codelist/AdminAreaCd.html

Options

Option: district

There are 20 ordinance-designated cities in Japan as of 2018. Each ordinance-designated city has several administrative districts. As default, ordinance-designated cities are outputed in city level. This option outputs these cities in district level. Tokyo's 23 wards are ouptutted in ward level either with or without the option. A full list of ordinance-designated cities is avilable in this page.

Option: compressed

This option moves Okinawa prefecture to the top left of the map, making it compressed as same as jpn_pref.

Source

• National Land Information Division, National Spatial Planning and Regional Policy Bureau, MLIT of Japan, National Land Numerical Information download service
• National Land Numerical Information Administrative Zones Data (WGS; whole country; 2018)
• https://nlftp.mlit.go.jp/ksj/gml/datalist/KsjTmplt-N03-v2_3.html

• Takashi Kirimura, Municipality Map Maker Web version (MMM4W)
• Municipality shapefiles (WGS; lightweight size; October 1 of each year)
• https://www.tkirimura.com/mmm/

Reference

• Takashi Kirimura, Municipality Map Maker Web version (MMM4W)
• https://www.tkirimura.com/mmm/

Licence

Author