Akabira-shi

In the most recent Population Census the population is about ninety-seven hundred (9,698 in 2020). From 15,753 in 2000, through 14,401 (2005), 12,637 (2010) and 11,105 (2015), it reached 9,698 in 2020 — some six thousand fewer over twenty years, dropping below ten thousand.

Look inside the figure and you see a coal town that has closed its shafts. The share aged 65 and over rose from 29.9% in 2000 to 48.1% in 2020, up about eighteen points in twenty years, now nearing half the residents. Households with children stood at just 10.5% in 2020. The childcare waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.18 in FY2023 — its own tax revenue does not even reach twenty percent of expenditure, a level heavily dependent on the local allocation tax. A town that carried out enough coal for its station to record the nation’s top freight, having closed its shafts, has fallen below ten thousand and aged to nearly half — that is what the numbers show. Why it took this shape cannot be read without going back through the history of Sorachi coal and a single shaft.

This town’s skeleton is set down by coal found along a Sorachi river, by the opening of shafts, by the nearly sixty thousand people and the record of the nation’s top freight it gathered, and by the closure of the last mine. The first layer is coal. In the closing years of the Edo period, an explorer who walked the northern land found coal along this place’s river. In the first half of the twentieth century shafts to dig that coal were opened, and the town grew suddenly as a coal town. At the peak nearly sixty thousand people lived along this river. Coal gave rise to the town itself.

The coal carried out of those shafts reached an enormous volume. The annual freight tonnage handled by the town’s station is said to have recorded more than any other station in Japan. The sheer volume of coal dug and carried out mirrored, directly, the town’s peak. But the age’s fuel shifted. From the late 1950s and 60s the coal industry turned toward decline, the shafts closed, and by the mid-1990s the last mine went dark too. The coal of the Sorachi riverside, the opening of the shafts, a population of sixty thousand and the nation’s top freight, and the closing of the last mine — this town’s shape rests on the history in which coal found along a Sorachi river gathered people, recorded the nation’s top freight, and then departed.

What characterizes Akabira is that, carrying the history of Sorachi coal and a single shaft, it has cut its population below ten thousand over twenty years. From 15,753 in 2000 to 9,698 in 2020, it lost some six thousand in twenty years. The population that neared sixty thousand at the peak left the riverside as the shafts closed, and around the latter half of the Heisei era it fell below ten thousand. The age of the remaining households is high, and the share aged 65 and over reaching 48.1% in 2020, nearing half, is the consequence.

Meanwhile the childcare waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025, but with households with children at just 10.5% in 2020, it is more accurate to read this as the flip side of there being few children waiting in the first place. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.18 — its own tax revenue not even reaching twenty percent of expenditure — is markedly low even among the nation’s cities, showing the degree of reliance on national support. Having lost the shafts that were the town’s livelihood, the tax base is extremely thin. A population below ten thousand, aging nearing half, finances short of twenty percent. These are not unrelated ailments: the peak when coal carried out of the shafts pushed the station’s freight tonnage to first in the nation, and the thinness after the single shaft that sustained it was gone, are consequences born of layering on one and the same livelihood.

Akabira carries several things. One is its history as a coal town that supported the Sorachi coalfield, where an explorer found coal along the river in the closing years of the Edo period, shafts were opened in the first half of the twentieth century, and nearly sixty thousand people gathered. Another is its character: the volume of coal carried out of those shafts was large, and the annual freight tonnage handled by the town’s station recorded more than any other station in Japan. And it carries the drop in which, as the age’s fuel shifted, the shafts closed, the last mine went dark in the mid-1990s, and the population fell below ten thousand. The geography of a Sorachi riverside made the town entrust its fate to a single resource — coal.

From the coal of the riverside, to the opening of the shafts, to a population of sixty thousand and the nation’s top freight, and on to the closing of the last mine. The geography of a Sorachi riverside made the town stake itself on a single resource and pushed its peak as far as the nation’s top freight at the station. The sheer volume dug and carried out was, directly, the size of the town. That is exactly why the drop, when that flow was cut off, is carved especially deep in Akabira.