Hiragana and katakana place names

The hiragana cities of Japan are municipalities whose names are written in hiragana rather than kanji as is traditional for Japanese place names. Many hiragana city names have kanji equivalents that are either phonetic manyōgana, or whose kanji are outside of the Joyo kanji. Others, such as Tsukuba in Ibaraki Prefecture, are taken from localities or landmarks whose names continue to be written in kanji. Yet another cause is the merger of multiple cities, one of which had the original kanji — in such cases, the hiragana place name is used to create a new identity for the merged city, distinct from the constituent city with the same kanji name.