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This article is within the scope of WikiProject Cities, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of cities, towns and various other settlements on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CitiesWikipedia:WikiProject CitiesTemplate:WikiProject CitiesWikiProject Cities articles
I had modified the lead so that it read "... is a town (municipality) located in ...". [User:Amake|Amake]] disagreed with this edit saying in the edit summary "clarification not needed. Everyone knows what a town is." Unfortunately that just is not so. The English Wikipedia has a broad audience, and many people come from places where towns are restricted to urbanized areas, and do not include the surrounding territory. For example, that is true of most, if not all, of the American Midwest and West. See the two articles at Town and Municipality for the many differences. A town is not always, or maybe not usually, also a municipality. Yes, if someone clicks on the word town and actually reads the article there, then they will have the opportunity to fully understand (assuming that the article Towns of Japan is rewritten to make it clearer) that in Japan they are synonymous; however, the Wikipedia Manual of Style guidelines suggest that we make things clear in each individual article, if possible without huge amounts of extraneous text. That is what I did by simply adding (municipality) after town, because in Japan they are synonymous. In articles about settlements and administrative units with the same name in other countries it is appropriate to say "X is a town and municipality" where the two are not synonymous. Any other comments? --Bejnar (talk) 15:30, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree entirely. The details of the Japanese village/town/city system are irrelevant to those who can't already read the Japanese. Beyond that, the general notion of "town" that everyone who speaks English has is more than enough to understand the article. If they need more info they can click the link; that's why it's linked to. There is no need to add "municipality."
