Hokkaido Prefecture had 14 branch offices called 支庁 (shichō) in Japanese, which is often translated in English as subprefectures.
From April 2010, Hokkaido has nine General Subprefecture Bureaus (総合振興局, sōgō-shinkō-kyoku, literally "Comprehensive Promotion Bureau") and five Subprefecture Bureaus (振興局, shinkō-kyoku, literally "Promotion Bureau")).
For historical reasons, some older people in Hokkaido use the subprefecture name suffixed by -kannai in their address.
The prefectural government of Hokkaido planned to reorganise the current fourteen subprefectures into nine sub-prefectural bureaus.
The capital municipalities of these subprefectures opposed the plan, but on June 28, 2008, the prefectural council passed the ordinance of the reorganization.