What do you see here? 1口。2県。3国。4生。5目。6区 [kuchi, ken, kuni, sei, me, ku]
They mean: 1. mouth, 2. state/province, 3.country, 4. life, 5. vision, 6. district/ward
A mouth [口] is also an enclosure. eg a country is to its people an enclosure. country [国]. You see that this encloses people/life: [生]. Also the [生] is placed upside down as it does not matter.
区 is ward, a smaller portion of a country than a state. Hence only one open side, as you have to be enclosed within a state. You are less open to the country if you are in a ward than if you are in a state. [to go out of a sate you have to first go through other wards which restricts your freedom, but to go from a state to another state you have less restrictions since there are only less number of states: degrees of freedom is accorded more to a state which then reduces by the time it comes to a ward/village/distt.] The sign within [区] is simply a person. [more details can be seek]
Now look at a 県 [ken: state/province] The 目 represents vision hence distance. In terms of distance its smaller than a country, hence: [小] this is the kanji for small: chisana, ko, chisatara, sanscrit: kshyudra [which leads to kodomo, kishor etc]. Also see that the mouth/box: [口] is now more open, two sides are open. Its more open to a country than a district. All laws pass through state before they go to distt/ward. But all laws do not pass through state’s decision incase country has a sanction even on states. State does not have all freedom/decision that country has.
M Dash Foundation: C Cube Learning 