Bibai-shi

In the most recent Population Census the population is about 20,000 (20,413 in 2020). From 31,183 in 2000, through 29,083 in 2005, 26,034 in 2010 and 23,035 in 2015, it became 20,413 in 2020 — losing more than ten thousand in twenty years and coming near twenty thousand.

Look at the contents and the figure of a coal town that closed its two shafts appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 25.1% in 2000 to 42.3% in 2020, climbing about seventeen points in twenty years, now past four in ten 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 0.26 in fiscal 2023 — a level where own tax revenue does not reach three-tenths of expenditure, leaning heavily on the local allocation tax. The figure of a coal town that passed ninety thousand on two zaibatsu shafts, reducing its population toward twenty thousand after closing the shafts and advancing its aging to four in ten, appears in the numbers. Why this shape arises cannot be read without tracing back the origins of the two shafts and the mine closures.

This town’s skeleton is set by the landform of the eastern edge of the Ishikari Plain, by the shafts two financial conglomerates dug, by the more than ninety thousand people they gathered, and by the sculptor the town sent into the world after the shafts closed. The beginning layer is the two shafts. In the first half of the twentieth century, one conglomerate acquired a coal mine, railway included, and accelerated its development; later another conglomerate too entered, and this town became a principal coal town of the Ishikari coalfield holding two large mines. In a single town, two great shafts stood side by side, and at its height more than ninety thousand people lived here. The two shafts gave birth to the town itself.

But the era’s fuel shifted. As the fuel of living and of factories moved from coal to oil, the two shafts closed one after another, and shaft mining disappeared from the town. Yet the town the shafts left sent into the world a sculptor born here who studied in Italy. On the site of a schoolhouse closed after its people had gone, he opened a place to set carved-stone works out in a field, and carved into the town the shafts had left a flow of another kind of time. The eastern edge of the Ishikari Plain, two zaibatsu shafts, a population of ninety thousand, the closures and a sculptor — this town’s form stands upon the origin whereby, on the eastern edge of the Ishikari Plain, two shafts gathered people, and on what came after they were gone.

What characterizes Bibai-shi is that, carrying the origins of two zaibatsu shafts and a sculptor, it has reduced its population toward twenty thousand in twenty years and advanced its aging to four in ten. From 31,183 in 2000 to 20,413 in 2020, more than ten thousand were lost in twenty years. The population that at its height passed ninety thousand left the town with the closure of the two shafts, and the age of the remaining households is high. That the share aged 65 and over passed four in ten at 42.3% in 2020 is the consequence.

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 0.26 is a level where own tax revenue does not reach three-tenths of expenditure, showing the large reliance on the local allocation tax. Having lost the two shafts that were the pillars of the town’s livelihood, what remains is the agriculture of the plain and the livelihood of receiving those who come to the place the sculptor left behind, but the tax base is thin. The town that closed its two shafts keeps reducing its population even now and advancing its aging. A population around twenty thousand, aging past four in ten, finance not reaching three-tenths. When the two shafts that had gathered ninety thousand closed on the same wave of the era, those ninety thousand left at the same speed — every one of the numbers is the trace of that single ebb tide.

The origins Bibai carries lie in this: on the trace the two shafts left, a single sculptor set down a different time. One is the origin as a principal coal town of the Ishikari coalfield, where on the eastern edge of the Ishikari Plain two great financial conglomerates each dug their shafts, held two large mines, and gathered more than ninety thousand people. The other is the character whereby, the era’s fuel having shifted, both shafts closed and shaft mining disappeared from the town. And it holds the singular outline whereby the town the shafts left sent a sculptor born here into the world, and on the site of a closed schoolhouse he left behind a place to set carved-stone works out in a field.

From the two zaibatsu shafts, to a population of ninety thousand, to the closures, and on to the place the sculptor left behind. On the eastern edge of the Ishikari Plain, two great shafts stood side by side in the same town and gathered more than ninety thousand people. After the shafts were gone, on the site of a schoolhouse from which the people had vanished, carved-stone works were set out in a field — once the story of industry had ebbed, a single sculptor left a different time in this town.

Lay out Bibai’s numbers and the indicators of a coal town that closed its two shafts line up: a population fallen near twenty thousand, an aging rate of 42.3%, a household-with-children rate of 12.6%, a fiscal capacity of 0.26. But what I (Atlas) want to read through the eye of accounting is the origin whereby this town held “two great shafts standing side by side in a single town.” Two financial conglomerates each dug their shafts, and this town, holding two large mines, gathered at its height more than ninety thousand people. But when the two shafts closed on the same wave of the era, those ninety thousand left the town at the same speed. The composition whereby a town that had leaned on a single resource — and doubly so — faces a large drop when it loses that resource explains well the figure of an aging rate of 42.3%.

On the trace of that drop, picture what this town now holds. The elementary school children once attended was closed after its people had gone. On that site, a sculptor born in this town who studied in Italy set polished works of white marble out in a field, here and there, left bare to the weather. The clamour of the days ninety thousand lived here, the sound that rang from the shafts, are gone. On a wide lawn, polished stone lies quietly, and those who visit lay a hand on its cold surface and go home. The aging past four in ten, and the finance not reaching three-tenths, are continuous with the stillness of this place. A town that prospered on the black coal the shafts dug out came, after losing the shafts, to hold a grass field scattered with white marble. Black stone gathered people; white stone summoned stillness — places where one can imagine, hand laid on polished marble, the half-century that flowed between the two, are not many.