Each communication station, at least, periodically transmits/receives a beacon at regular intervals and manages the transmission/reception using a neighboring-station list (neighbor list), thereby managing the network of the communications station in a distributed manner. In addition, a save area is provided in which n beacons transmitted/received at regular time intervals are managed in a neighboring-station list, thereby making it easy to schedule list reading/writing processing when the list is updated during the reception of a new beacon. When the network topologies are crossed over, a load for network management can be reduced. Thus, it is possible to provide a wireless communication system in which a system timer and a master station that controls common frame time do not exist in a domain included in the system.