Fu (administrative division)

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Fu (country subdivision)
)
"Phủ" redirects here. For other uses, see phu (disambiguation).
Fu
Chinese name
Hanyu Pinyin
fǔⓘ
Wade–Gilesfu3
Yue: Cantonese
Jyutpingfu2
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese/pɨoX/
Vietnamese nameVietnamese alphabetphủChữ Hán府Korean nameHangul부Hanja府Japanese nameKanji府Hiraganaふ
Look up 府 in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Fu (

commandery, prefecture, urban prefecture, or city. They were first instituted as a regular form of administrative division of China's Tang Empire, but were later adopted in Vietnam, Japan and Korea. At present, only two fu still remain: the prefectures of Kyoto and Osaka in Japan
.

The term fu is currently also used in Chinese to translate the provinces of Thailand, but not those of mainland China, Taiwan or other countries.

Meaning

Fu (府) means an office or a command institution. The character appears in the Chinese words for "government" (政府, zhėngfǔ) or "official's residence" (府邸, fǔdǐ), and names of official institutions such as the "Imperial Household Department" (內務府, Nèiwùfǔ) in China or "Office of the President" (總統府, Zǒngtǒngfǔ) in Taiwan.

The Japanese language uses the Chinese character: (i) as a part of words, such as government (政府, seifu),

shogunate (幕府, bakufu), Cabinet Office (内閣府, naikakufu), and legislature
(立法府, rippō-fu), or (ii) as the name of a category of prefectures.

China

See also:
List of Fu prefectures of China

One of the earlier uses of fu as part of the name of an administrative division was the Protectorate of the Western Regions (西域都護府, Xīyù Dūhù Fǔ) of the Han Empire in 60 BC. Duhu Fu, usually translated as "protectorate", literally meant "Office of the Commander-Protector".

In 627, the second emperor of the

Zhou was the more common name for an inland prefecture. Dudu Fu was shortened to Fu and the convention developed that larger prefectures would be named fu, while smaller prefectures would be called zhou. One of the earliest cities to be called a fu was Jingzhao-fu (京兆府), which including the capital city Chang'an and Henan-fu, which including the secondary capital Luoyang during the Tang dynasty
.

By the time of the 14th–century

s 军民府
, jūnmínfǔ).

After the end of the

prefecture-level cities
.

Japan

As part of the

Shizuoka
, Sunpu (駿府).

During the

Kōfu
. Due to some prefectures gaining non-urban land or being amalgamated into other territories in 1869, three remained: Kyoto-fu, Osaka-fu and Tokyo-fu.

During the

Tokyo Metropolis
. This brought the number of fu in Japan to its current number of two: Kyoto-fu and Osaka-fu. There is currently a plan which will turn Osaka to a metropolis, which would leave the amount of urban prefectures to one if successful.

Korea

Bu (부, 府) has been used in

Ganghwa-bu, Suwon-bu and Gwangju-bu
.

In 1895 after the

Ŭiju
. The districts were named after the capitals of each district, and also included rural areas. A year later in August 1896, these districts were replaced by 13 new provinces, using the previous word do (도; 道).

After the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910 and the occupation of Korea by Japan, many areas were renamed and local government was reorganised. On 1 April 1914, twelve bu were created: Seoul (then Gyeongseong-bu (京城府, Keijō-fu)), Incheon, Gunsan, Mokpo, Daegu, Busan, Masan, Pyongyang, Chinnampo, Sinuiju, Wonsan and Chongjin. Between 1930 and 1944, 10 more were added by the Japanese government: Kaesong and Hamhung in 1930, followed by Daejeon, Jeonju and Gwangju in 1935, Rason (1936), Haeju (1938), Jinju (1939), Kimchaek (1941) and Hungnam (1944).

After the Potsdam Declaration in 1945 and Japan's defeat in World War II, as well as the division of Korea, the term has no longer been in use.

Vietnam

The word was borrowed in

huyện sub-prefecture or district, and power was concentrated with provincial governors. The position of local prefects and district heads remained unaffected.[6][7]

References

  1. ISBN 0-521-21446-7
  2. ^ Kurt Steiner, Local government in Japan, Stanford University Press, 1965, p. 179
  3. ^ Karl Hack, Tobias Rettig Colonial Armies in Southeast Asia (2006) p, 152 "31 A phu is an administrative subdivision of a province. 32 A huyen is an administrative subdivision of a phu."
  4. ISBN 9780226467689
    . Retrieved 2021-06-19. The huyen was an administrative unit — a subprefecture — within the province which first came into use in the fifteenth century. See Whitfield, op. cit. (n. 2), p. 118. '6'Each province was divided into several phu or prefectures. Ibid.
  5. ^ Choi Byung Wook Southern Vietnam Under the Reign of Minh Mạng (1820-1841) (2004) p. 34 "As in other regions dominated by the Vietnamese, a Vietnamese frontier administrative unit called phủ was formed in the regions of the Khmer, in Tra Vinh and Soc Trang in 1789. 66 But the position as leader or head of this unit was allocated ..."
  6. ^ Journal asiatique, Société asiatique (Paris, France), Centre national de la recherche scientifique (France), Gallica (Organization) (1834) p. 475 "A cette époque il a voulu marcher sur les traces de l'empereur de Chine et a divisé son royaume en tinh ou métropoles. Il y a laissé les phù et les huyên comme auparavant. L'ordre a été changé, mais le fond de l'administration est le même."
  7. ^ Jacob Ramsay Mandarins and Martyrs: The Church and the Nguyen Dynasty in Early ... (2008) p. 37 "provinces (tỉnh) over which directly appointed governors-general (tổngđốc), one to every two provinces, and every two provinces, and governors (tuấn phủ), to every other province, ruled. 51 Under the provincial structure, a descending hierarchy of smaller territorial jurisdictions was organized: these included the prefecture (phủ), the district (huyện), the canton (tổng), and the village ... Just as bureaucratic order provided the foundation for the administration of the kingdom, attention to key sites of ritual power projected"
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