<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Sep 24, 2015, at 1:25 PM, Warin <<a href="mailto:61sundowner@gmail.com" class="">61sundowner@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: none; display: inline !important;" class="">This is an American view.. the British do not do this - they have a 'central government'</span></div></blockquote></div><div class=""><br class=""></div>US:<br class=""><div class="">Federal (central) </div><div class="">State</div><div class="">County</div><div class="">City </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Japan:</div><div class="">National (central)</div><div class="">Prefectural (Provence)</div><div class="">City </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">government =/= State government. It is generic. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""> "Government" implies one or all of those, so it needs to be defined in speech: “State government” “Federal Government” , etc. I would assume the admin level attached would define the level. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">We have an extra layer (the state) because Japan is basically the size of California, and a county is roughly equivalent to a region or prefecture there. And there are 50 states (of various sizes). </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Javbw</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></body></html>