1. Two Ways to Write an Address: Name the Street or Number the Block
In the United States or the United Kingdom, an address usually has a house number plus a street name, like the White House's "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW." Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism calls this the "road method": a road gets a name, and the buildings along it get numbers [1].
Most of Japan uses the other option, the "block method" (gaiku hōshiki). An area enclosed by public roads or rivers is treated as a block with its own number, and each building inside gets a number too. A typical address is read like this: prefecture, city, district name, then numbers such as "2-chome 3-1." A chome is a numbered section of a district. The ministry says the block method is used in most places in Japan, while the road method is used in only a few [1].
Both methods are written into Japanese law, so Japan did not forget about street names. It had a choice to make, and the next question is how it got there [2].
2. Old Land Numbers Made Homes Hard to Find, So a 1962 Law Changed the Rules
Before the law, many places used land-registry numbers (chiban) as addresses. The trouble, according to the Tokyo ward of Setagaya, is that those numbers were never made for telling people where a home is. The 1962 "Act on Indication of Residence" was written to remove the "various obstacles" caused by using them that way [3].
The law's first article is short: it exists to set up a "rational" address system and the steps needed to put it in place, for the public good. It lets each town choose the block method or the road method, and a supplementary rule asks towns to start quickly in urban areas where the old custom was causing everyday trouble [2]. Setagaya, for example, began switching in 1964 and had finished every district by 1971 [3].
So the street-free address was not an accident or a leftover. It was a planned fix, and in most towns the block method was the one picked. The sources I read do not explain why towns mostly preferred blocks over roads, so that part remains an open question.
3. How a Block Address Gives Each Building Its Number
Setagaya's ward office explains the rules. Officials draw the boundaries of a block along public roads or rivers. Starting at its southeast corner, they mark points about 15 meters (roughly 50 feet) apart along the block's edge on the map and number them 1, 2, 3 and so on, clockwise [3].
When a building goes up, its address number is whichever edge number is where its main entrance meets the block's boundary, usually a public road. That means the number tells you where along the block's edge the door is. It does not name the building. Two buildings with entrances at the same spot share a number, and the office says people tell them apart by the number plus the nameplate [3].
Here the road still matters, but as a boundary for the block rather than as a name in the address. That is why a Japanese address can feel like a map coordinate: it says "this block, this stretch of its edge."
4. Tokyo's Roads Still Have Names, Just Not in Addresses
If addresses skip street names, why does Tokyo have a Showa-dori at all? Road names exist for drivers and maps. According to a travel magazine, after the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, Tokyo drew up a reconstruction road plan in 1924 with 53 main routes and 123 smaller ones. A newspaper company, Tokyo Nichinichi Shimbun, ran a public contest to name 22 of the main routes. Route No. 1, running north-south from Minowa to Shinbashi, was named Showa-dori, and Route No. 2 was named Taisho-dori [4].
Later, the Tokyo government gave "popular road names" to 129 major national and prefectural roads: first in 1962 and 1963, then again in 1984. A committee report says these names are separate from the legal route names and were meant to be easy and friendly for road users [5]. This is how Taisho-dori became Yasukuni-dori, named after the shrine it passes [4]. The transport news site Norimono News adds that the Tokyo government said many of the 1962 names were ones already in local use [6].
So Tokyo has two layers: road names for getting around and block numbers for addresses. The same year, 1962, saw both the address law and the first batch of road names, but none of the sources I read says the two were connected, so I will not guess.
5. In Kyoto, Streets Name the Place and Children Learn Them in a Song
Kyoto is the famous exception. The city was laid out in 794 as Heian-kyo, modeled on the Chinese capital Chang'an, with straight roads in a grid. Main avenues were about 24 to 50 meters wide and lesser lanes about 12 meters, and that grid is still the base of the old town [7].
At first, most of these roads had no official names, only popular ones. Later, people began using the popular names in addresses, and the names settled in. Many reflect local trades. The railway's tourism column says Fuyacho Street is named for merchants who sold wheat gluten and tofu, and Kurumayacho Street for transporters and cartwheel blacksmiths who gathered there. To help children remember them, Kyoto has a street-name song that begins "Maru Take Ebisu ni Oshi Oike…" [7].
So Kyoto shows that street names have long helped people find places in Japan, and the 1962 block method sits beside that habit rather than erasing it.
6. Try It: Find the Block and the Road Name Near You
If you live in Japan, or have a Japanese address from a relative, look at the numbers: district, chome, then the numbers after it. On a map, find the roads or rivers that enclose that block. Then see whether the nearest large road has a name on signs or maps, and whether that name appears in the address.
If you live elsewhere, compare your own address with this one. Does it use a road name? Who might have chosen it, and when? A town hall or local library often keeps records of how streets got their names.
One question stays open: why most towns chose the block method over the road method in the 1960s. Old city council records or the debates around the law might say.