
Urban Employment Area
Urban Employment Area (都市雇用圏, Toshi Koyō-ken) is a definition of metropolitan areas used in Japan, defined by the Center for Spatial Information Service of the University of Tokyo. Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry defined 233 areas for the UEAs of Japan.[1] It is different from the definition of metropolitan areas defined in census by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. For the latter scheme, see the List of metropolitan areas in Japan article.
The basic principle of UEA is similar to that of the Statistics Bureau definition; a central city and its associated outlying municipalities with certain numbers of commuters. A UEA with at least 50,000 DID (Densely Inhabited District) population is called Metropolitan Employment Area (大都市雇用圏, Dai-toshi Koyō-ken) or MEA for short in English. A UEA with at least 10,000 and less than 50,000 DID population is called Micropolitan Employment Area (小都市雇用圏, Shō-toshi Koyō-ken) or McEA for short in English.
Source: Urban Employment Area (UEA) Code Table, "地域経済の将来動向分析に関する調査研究" [A study on the future trend analysis of the regional economy] (in Japanese).
These areas have multiple central cities. Municipal names are as of 2015.
These areas changed their names between 1980 and 2000, as the most populated central cities have changed.