The organization that reigns at the top of the Japanese police framework is named the National Police Agency. Under this agency, the police headquarters that holds jurisdiction over the Tokyo Metropolis area is known as the Metropolitan Police Department.
The NPA is a well-established national organization managed and operated by civil servants. Furthermore, beneath it, there are organizations designated Regional Police Bureaus. For example, the Kanto Regional Police Bureau and the Kinki Regional Police Bureau are responsible for managing their respective region's police forces, and under them are the prefectural police headquarters operated by local governments. Case in point, the Osaka Prefectural Police belongs to the Kinki Regional Police Bureau, and the Chiba Prefectural Police belongs to the Kanto Regional Police Bureau.
However, there is a particular organization that does not belong to any such bureau. And that is Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department, responsible for ensuring the safety of the country's capital city. The MPD has a long history, having been established in the 7th year of the Meiji era (1874) as "the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department". Even today, the MPD is not called "the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Headquarters", showing how larger it is than the other prefectural police headquarters.
Incidentally, only one other police headquarters in Japan does not belong to a Regional Police Bureau: the Hokkaido Police Headquarters. On the vast island of Hokkaido, the Hokkaido Police Headquarters serves as that region's police bureau, while the headquarters in Hakodate, Asahikawa, Kushiro, and Kitami serves as the prefectural police headquarters.
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