Just something I’m curious about. From what I know, towns and villages can be promoted to city status at about 50,000 people. So how many people would a village need to be promoted to town status? Is there a general rule? There must not be a hard rule because the most populous village has 40,000 people while the least populous city has 4,000 some. But from going down and choosing random villages from a list on Wikipedia, most villages seem to have 2,000 or less people.
https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/vrm50i/when_does_a_village_get_promoted_to_town_status/
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Probably not a hard rule. Might also vary between prefectures, but this is a pretty interesting question, hopefully somebody has some insight, but I somehow doubt it.
Just like cities, villages are promoted to towns based on factors such as population. However, unlike cities, the requirements are set by the prefecture, not the national government. They vary from 3000 to 15000 depending on the prefecture. Lastly, moving from village to town is not mandatory; some municipalities may meet the requirements but choose not to apply for changing their status.
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B8%82%E7%94%BA%E6%9D%91