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Ainan (愛南町; -cho) is a large city made up of smaller village suburbs in southern Ehime Prefecture, on the island of Shikoku in Japan.
In October, 2004 all the towns of Minamiuwa (Johen, Misho, Nishiumi, Uchiumi, and Ipponmatsu,) merged together to form a larger city, Ainan. This action, referred to in Japanese as gappei, has been happening more and more in Japan as these small villages annex into larger cities, primarily for tax reasons.
Each of the villages retained their name as a district of the larger Ainan city. This larger city, however, is now eligible to receive more government funding, and so this decision is very appealing to many small village clusters like the ones in Minamiuwa.
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