Every old province has another name made up with two characters beside the one we usually learn first and in case to take one character from the old provincial names to make a city name, in general it is taken from the provincial names of two-character; however, there are exceptions (example: Ito City ['I' is taken from Izu Province], Shunan City ['Shu' is taken from Suo Province; other name for Izu Province and Suo Province is Zu province and Bo Province respectively.
旧国名の一字を取る場合、一般に別称である「○州」の一字を取るが、例外に伊豆国（豆州）の伊東市、周防国（防州）の周南市がある。