Rumoi-shi

In the most recent Population Census the population is about 20,000 (20,114 in 2020). From 28,325 in 2000, through 26,826 in 2005, 24,457 in 2010 and 22,221 in 2015, it became 20,114 in 2020 — losing some eighty-two hundred in twenty years and coming near twenty thousand.

Look at the contents and the figure of a port city that prospered on herring and coal appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 18.6% in 2000 to 36.9% in 2020, climbing about eighteen points in twenty years, now well past one in three of the residents. The household-with-children rate is 12.6% (2020). The childcare waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.31 in fiscal 2023 — a level where own tax revenue covers only some three-tenths of expenditure, leaning heavily on the local allocation tax. The figure of a city that prospered as the fine harbour of the northern Sea of Japan, having lost herring, coal and railway alike, reducing its population toward twenty thousand, appears in the numbers. Why this shape arises cannot be read without tracing back the origins of the port, the herring and the railway.

This town’s skeleton is set by a fine harbour facing the northern Sea of Japan, by the herring of the sea and the processing of herring roe, by the railway that carried coal from the inland coalfield, and by the loss of that railway. The beginning layer is the port and the herring. Facing the northern Sea of Japan, this land held the finest natural harbour in the Teshio district, where herring were caught in great numbers and the processing of herring roe flourished. As a centre of the fishery where the “herring mansions” stood, the port gathered people and goods. Port and herring were this town’s old foundation.

To this port, inland coal gathered along a railway. At the start of the twentieth century, to ship out the coal, timber and marine products of the inland coalfield from this port, a railway linking an inland town with this port was opened, and was later extended as far as a southern fishing port that had thrived on herring. Port, herring and railway — these three bound the town’s prosperity into one. But the herring left the sea, the inland coalfield ended its role, and the railway that had led to the port was shortened in stages as its riders fell, until in the recent era the whole line disappeared. The fine harbour of the northern Sea of Japan, herring and herring roe, the railway that carried the coalfield’s coal, and the lost railway — this town’s form stands upon the origin of a fine harbour that gathered herring, coal and railway, and then let them go.

What characterizes Rumoi-shi is that, carrying the origins of herring, coal and a lost railway, it has reduced its population toward twenty thousand in twenty years. From 28,325 in 2000 to 20,114 in 2020, some eighty-two hundred were lost in twenty years. Two resources — the herring of the sea and the coal of the interior — and the railway that bound them to the port: these three pillars the town lost one by one with the times. A part of the younger generations left the port town that had lost its resources, and the age of the town as a whole reads as having risen. That the share aged 65 and over passed well beyond one in three at 36.9% in 2020 is one expression of that.

Meanwhile, the childcare waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025, and the household-with-children rate, at 12.6% (2020), is low. The Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.31 is a level where own tax revenue covers only some three-tenths of expenditure, showing the large reliance on the local allocation tax. The fine harbour facing the northern Sea of Japan, and the processing and logistics that follow from it, still prop the tax base, yet the effect of losing the three pillars that bound the prosperity is large. The fine-harbour city of the northern Sea of Japan, having lost herring, coal and railway alike, has reduced its population toward twenty thousand while raising the age of the town. A population around twenty thousand, aging past the mid-thirties, finance at some three-tenths — these merely restate, in separate words, what remained to a port town that let go of three pillars one by one.

The origins Rumoi carries rest on a rare structure: a single port bound resources from two directions, the sea and the interior. One is the origin as the finest natural harbour of the Teshio district, facing the northern Sea of Japan, a centre of the fishery that prospered on the herring of the sea and the processing of herring roe. The other is the character whereby, as the terminus of a railway carrying the coal and timber of the inland coalfield to the port, it bound the two resources of sea and interior into a single port. And it carries the experience of loss, whereby the railway that led to that port disappeared in full in the recent era. The landform of a fine harbour facing the northern Sea of Japan drew both the sea’s resources and the interior’s resources to this port together.

From the fine harbour and herring, to the railway that carried the coalfield’s coal, and on until that railway disappeared in full. The finest harbour of Teshio, facing the northern Sea of Japan, bound two resources — the herring of the sea and the coal of the interior — into a single port. Few towns tie the sea and the land into one — and so the very process of having that binding undone explains today’s Rumoi almost entirely.

Lay out Rumoi’s numbers and the indicators of a port city that prospered on herring and coal line up: a population fallen near twenty thousand, an aging rate of 36.9%, a household-with-children rate of 12.6%, a fiscal capacity of 0.31. But what I (Atlas) want to read through the eye of accounting is the origin whereby this town “bound two resources — the sea’s and the interior’s — into a single port.” In the sea herring were caught and roe was processed; from the inland coalfield coal gathered to the port along a railway. The composition whereby three pillars — port, herring, railway — overlapped into one and held up this town’s prosperity explains its map well.

Draw the causation into a single line and the reason for so low a fiscal capacity as 0.31 comes into view. Many port towns, having lost one resource, are held up for a while by another pillar. But Rumoi was different. The herring left the sea, the inland coalfield ended its role, and even the railway that carried that coal disappeared in full in 2026. The three pillars were drawn out one by one, staggered across the times. Each time one was lost the population was shaved, the tax base thinned, and when at last the very “binding device,” the railway, was lost, the structure itself — a port town gathering three resources to a single point — could no longer stand. The fiscal capacity of 0.31, covering only some three-tenths of expenditure with own revenue, is not a figure produced by piled-up misfortune. The port function that had bound the sea and the land into one had that binding undone in turn, and at the end the binding device itself disappeared — what remained is a single fine harbour, opening still toward the Sea of Japan with nothing left to bind.