県
けん · ken · JLPT N3 · noun
prefecture
🗾 Upside-down head on a string: districts that hang off the capital
The old form 縣 showed a head hung upside down from a cord, meaning to hang. Outlying districts hung off the central government, so the character came to mean county, and now prefecture. Its old hanging sense moved to 懸 (also read ken).