You will likely be associating a sightseeing spot with the general area and the name of its closest train station, but knowing the municipal division of the place you're going to might give you an idea of its size and where it's located in respect to other areas.
Japan is split up into prefectures; a prefecture being like a state or a province. Usually it is not difficult or overly time consuming to travel to a neighboring prefecture when going from hub to hub. For example, you can travel to Kyoto Station from Osaka Station in 30 minutes, and from Tennoji Station (another station hub in Osaka City) to Nara Station in 35 minutes. No sweat, right?
The next designation is city or shi. Cities are usually determined by population, and so aren't necessarily geographically vast (with some exceptions). The next division is town, cho or machi, small enough to be the last element on a person's address. Then there is village, or mura. A cho or town is often part of a larger city, but a village designation can indicate a lower population (too small to be a town) and that you are out in the countryside.
When a city is sufficiently large in geographical size and population, it may be split into ku, or wards. Such a city with wards is known as a designated city. If you hear something about a ward, you can understand it to be smaller than a city, but larger than a town. Osaka City, Kyoto City, Kobe City and my old haunt Sakai City are all examples of designated cities with wards. Tokyo is doing its own thing. It used to have an area known as Tokyo City, but when the entire prefecture was renamed the "Tokyo Metropolis," Tokyo City was split into "special wards" and these function the same as cities. Ward up.
A less common designation in place of a city is a district, or gun. This is usually a rural area.
Japanese people also use city, town and village in the same way we do to describe the character of a location (e.g. Amerika Mura/America Village), and it's not always obvious to the foreign traveler whether the title is indicating a municipal designation or a stretch of road or something else. Really it's only an issue when you try to look something up.
Places are often named after a nearby geographical feature. Common ones are yama or san/zan, mountain; oka, hill; hara or bara, field; ta or da, rice field; ike, pond; ji or tera/dera, temple; and kawa or gawa, river. Some locations are now devoid of the feature that gave them their name, but many still exist. God knows there are mountains in Japan, but a mountain needn't be of a certain elevation for locals back in the day to decide it was a mountain.
English naming is usually in the vein of the "ATM machine" so it's the Yodogawa River not the Yodo River... though the convention is sometimes broken. English spelling can also differ depending of the system of romanization used. If you see a flat line above a vowel, make that vowel sound a touch longer when you say it.
Oh yes, and there are almost no street names to help you out. Getting around is very much a case of maps and landmarks.
Driver Gragma (yokaitourbus "at" mail "dot" com)
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yokaitourbus/
The Master Lists
Osaka: http://yokaitourbus.blogspot.com/2015/08/6-the-master-list-osaka.html
Hyogo: http://yokaitourbus.blogspot.com/2015/08/6-b-master-list-hyogo.html
Kyoto: http://yokaitourbus.blogspot.com/2015/08/6-c-master-list-kyoto.html
Shiga: http://yokaitourbus.blogspot.com/2015/08/6-d-master-list-shiga.html
Nara: http://yokaitourbus.blogspot.com/2015/08/6-e-master-list-nara.html
Mie: http://yokaitourbus.blogspot.com/2015/08/6-f-master-list-mie.html
Wakayama: http://yokaitourbus.blogspot.com/2015/08/6-g-master-list-wakayama.html
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