Muroran-shi

In the most recent Population Census the population is about 82,000 (82,383 in 2020). Its course is a single road of decline. From 103,278 in 2000, through 98,372 in 2005, 94,535 in 2010 and 88,564 in 2015, to 82,383 in 2020 — falling steadily by several thousand every five years. It works out to some twenty thousand fewer in twenty years, about a fifth in rate.

Look at the contents and the figure of a heavy-and-chemical-industry town shrinking appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 21.4% in 2000 to 36.8% in 2020, nearing four in ten. The household-with-children rate is a low 13.8% in 2020, and the childcare waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.62 in fiscal 2023, able to cover about six-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue, a mid-rank level for a regional city. The steel town shows, in its numbers, the figure of holding fiscal stamina at mid-rank against the backdrop of industry, even as it greatly loses population and deepens aging. Why this shape arises cannot be read without tracing back the origins of steelmaking and the port.

Muroran’s skeleton is set by a natural fine harbor cut deep into the Pacific and by the coal and steel carried to its hinterland. The old layer is steelmaking. In 1907 the Japan Steel Works was set here, and in 1909 a steelworks. Muroran’s steelworks is held to be the third-oldest in the country to begin operations, after Kamaishi and Yawata. The fine harbor and the coal carried from the coalfield behind it summoned heavy and chemical industry to this place, and through the first half of the twentieth century Muroran developed as a “steel town.”

Another pillar is the port. Muroran Port was Hokkaido’s leading coal-shipping port, sending out to Honshu the coal mined in the coalfield behind it. At its peak, about six-tenths of the Hokkaido coal bound for Honshu is said to have been shipped from this port. But as energy shifted from coal to oil, Muroran Port ended its role as a coal-shipping port in 1976. Thereafter it changed its role into a coastal industrial port supporting the plant cluster of steelworks, steel mills and refineries. And to the town’s south is Cape Chikyu, where cliffs run in a line. Producing steel, shipping out coal — this town’s form stands upon the origin of the coal and steel that the geography of a fine Pacific harbor held.

What characterizes Muroran-shi is that, while holding the origin of steelmaking as a heavy and chemical industry, it greatly loses population and deepens aging. From 103,278 in 2000 to 82,383 in 2020, some twenty thousand were lost in twenty years. A population once above one hundred thousand has shrunk to the level of whether it can hold eighty thousand. Amid the rationalization of heavy and chemical industry, and a flow of younger generations moving to cities such as Sapporo, population decline and a deepening of aging read as advancing. That the share aged 65 and over neared four in ten at 36.8% in 2020, and the household-with-children rate is a low 13.8%, are expressions of that population composition.

On the other hand, fiscal stamina holds at mid-rank. The Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.62 is a level able to cover about six-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue, mid-rank for a regional city. The plants of heavy and chemical industry — steelworks, steel mills, refineries — read as giving thickness to a tax base such as the fixed-asset tax. The childcare waitlist, too, was zero in both 2024 and 2025, and the capacity against the reduced population is kept. The steel town keeps fiscal stamina at mid-rank against the backdrop of industry, even as it greatly loses population and deepens aging. The curve of population and the curve of finance do not face the same direction — this very discrepancy becomes the entrance to reading the numbers of a heavy-and-chemical-industry town. Look only at the number of people who live here, and only half of Muroran’s outline can be seen.

The functions Muroran holds are the very history of a single port jutting into the Pacific holding up the town while changing what it carried. One is the origin of a steelworks that began operations in 1909, held to be the third-oldest in the country after Kamaishi and Yawata, giving it the old layer of a steel town. Another is the history of a port that changed its role from a coal-shipping port — which once shipped out about six-tenths of the Hokkaido coal — into a coastal industrial port, keeping the character of mirroring the energy transition. And Cape Chikyu, where cliffs run in a line, gives this town the particular landform of a peninsula jutting into the Pacific.

From a port shipping out coal, to a town producing steel, and on to a coastal industrial port. The geography of a fine harbor jutting deep into the Pacific summoned first coal, then steel, and as energy shifted to oil, quietly changed over its role. The same port has kept holding up the town while changing what it carried — Muroran may be said to be the very history of the changing roles of a port.

Lay out Muroran’s numbers and the indicators of a heavy-and-chemical-industry town shrinking line up: twenty thousand fewer in twenty years, an aging rate of 36.8%, a 13.8% household-with-children rate, a fiscal capacity of 0.62. But where I (Atlas) stop, through the eye of accounting, is the apparent discrepancy between the steep fall in population and the holding of fiscal capacity at mid-rank. Ordinarily, a fall in population this large would seem to thin finance too. Yet Muroran’s fiscal capacity of 0.62 mirrors how the plants of heavy and chemical industry — steelworks, refineries — support a tax base such as the fixed-asset tax, apart from the number of people who live here. The number of people who live and the tax base that holds up the town do not necessarily draw the same curve — that separation becomes the key to reading this town’s numbers.

Pushed to its limit, this discrepancy arrives at a single cause. Muroran’s tax base is tied not to people but to equipment. The blast furnace of the steelworks, the tanks of the refinery, remain there as fixed assets even as the people who live decline, and keep generating the fixed-asset tax. So even with the population down a fifth, the fiscal capacity stays at mid-rank. Put the other way, this town’s finance is staked on the survival of factories, not residents. That a town dependent on a single industry loses population as that industry shrinks is common to heavy-and-chemical-industry cities across the country, but in Muroran’s case, because the fall in population and the holding of the tax base occur at once, that dependence is, if anything, harder to see. What holds up the living of eighty thousand is the single point of how long the plant cluster ringing the bay keeps its fires lit.