With the objectives of inducing appropriate use of land in urban areas and of ensuring orderly development of urban facilities, urban planning in Japan is drawn up based on the City Planning Law. Development and building activities must be in compliance with the therein provided rules and regulations of urban planning and building standards, whose fundamentals are given below.

    In order to clearly divide the areas where urbanization is to be encouraged and the areas where urbanization is to be restrained, Japan's urban planning system makes use of an Urbanization Promotion Area and Urbanization Control Area framework. In an Urbanization Control Area, development and building activities are strictly regulated. The term for the borderline between these two is UGB, Urban Growth Boundary.

    Within Urban Areas, in order to prevent incompatible intermingling of industrial and residential areas, zoning (Land Use District) that regulates the type and form of the buildings, Building Coverage Ratio, Floor-Area Ratio, etc., is laid down. These rules must be observed in all construction activities.

    The City Planning Law also provides for the locations and areas for fundamental urban facilities such as arterial roads, parks,green zones and usage; thus there is some limitation to building activities on the sites overlapping with these designated locations and areas.

    Zones of Urban development Projects, such as a Land Readjustment Project and an Urban Redevelopment Project, are often laid in the Urban planning; thus there is some limitation to building activities in these zones.