Nayoro-shi

In the most recent Population Census the population is about 27,000 (27,282 in 2020). From 27,760 in 2000 and 26,590 in 2005, it jumped once to 30,591 in 2010 across the 2006 merger, then fell to 29,048 in 2015 and 27,282 in 2020. The step in the 2010 figure is not a sudden increase in population; it is the result of the merger adding a neighboring town to the municipal area.

Looking inside the figures, the shape of the central city of Dohoku, raised by the railway terminus, appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 19.9% in 2000 to 32.1% in 2020 — up some twelve points over twenty years, passing three in ten. Households with children make up 16.4% (2020). The employment rate was 57.1% in 2020, on the higher side among inland cities of Hokkaido. The Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.27 in fiscal 2023 — a level whose own tax revenue covers only a quarter or so of expenditure. The numbers show a basin city that began at a railway terminus and became the center of Dohoku, raising population once through merger and then losing it. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without tracing the history of the railway and the merger.

This town’s skeleton is set by its position as the terminus of the railway extended from Asahikawa, by its role as the center of Dohoku north of the Shiokari Pass, and by the Heisei-era merger. The opening layer is the railway. Past the middle of the Meiji era, the railway reaching north from Asahikawa arrived at this Nayoro Basin and became, for a time, a dead-end terminal station. At this land that had become the railway’s northern end, people and goods gathered, and a place where the goods of Dohoku — the land beyond the Shiokari Pass — collected was born. The railway terminus was this town’s old foundation.

That terminus came, in time, to be the central city of Dohoku. The soil of the basin, cold as it was, raised rice — and glutinous rice in particular — to the point of recording the nation’s top output. The track was later extended still farther north, but this town kept its seat as the center where the goods and people of Dohoku gathered. Then, in the Heisei-era merger, this town bound a neighboring town into one. The new city was formed by joining the old city and the neighboring town in a new merger, widening the municipal area and raising the population once. The railway terminus extended from Asahikawa, the center of Dohoku, and the Heisei merger — these three differ in era yet connect along a single line. The people and goods gathered at the railway’s northern end raised the central town, and that town bound the basin through merger — Nayoro’s present lies at the end of that accumulation.

What characterizes Nayoro-shi is that, while carrying the history of a railway terminus and the center of Dohoku, it raised population once in the 2006 merger and has since gently lost it. From 26,590 in 2005 it rose to 30,591 in 2010 across the merger, then fell to 27,282 in 2020. Set aside that the 2010 increase owes to the merger, and the proper reading is that this town’s population has gently declined from its pre-merger level. The thickness as the center of Dohoku since the railway terminus, and the farming of the basin — glutinous rice above all — have held the core of life, while some of the younger generation have moved toward the larger cities. That the share aged 65 and over reached 32.1%, passing three in ten, in 2020 is the sign of that.

Meanwhile the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025, and the employment rate of 57.1% in 2020 is on the higher side among inland cities of Hokkaido. This can be read as a sign that, as the center of Dohoku, commerce, administration, medicine, and places of learning gather in this town, giving its jobs a certain thickness. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.27 is a level whose own tax revenue covers only a quarter or so of expenditure, showing the large dependence on the local allocation tax. The central city of Dohoku that bound the basin is now raising the town’s age while gently losing population. Set aside the merger step and the population is in gentle decline; the employment rate is on the higher side; fiscal strength covers a quarter or so. This mismatch — a falling population coexisting with a high employment rate — cannot be untangled by looking at any single figure alone. It comes out right only when the role of the center of Dohoku is taken into account.

There are three keys to reading Nayoro. One is its position: as the terminal station of the railway extended from Asahikawa, it became the center where the goods and people of Dohoku, north of the Shiokari Pass, gathered. Another is its character: the soil of the Nayoro Basin, cold as it was, raised farming — recording the nation’s top output of glutinous rice, among other things. And in the Heisei-era merger it bound a neighboring town in a new merger, widening the municipal area and raising the population once. The landform of the Nayoro Basin, and the position where the railway reached its northern end, gave this town the role of the center of Dohoku.

In other words, Nayoro is a town where the center of Dohoku, raised by the railway terminus, bound the basin through merger. From the railway terminus extended from Asahikawa, to the center of Dohoku, the glutinous-rice basin, and the Heisei merger — every one of these is rooted in the geography of “the Nayoro Basin north of the Shiokari Pass.” The position of a terminal station drew in the role of the center of Dohoku, and that role in turn called forth the Heisei-era merger that bound the neighboring town. Position drew role, and role drew merger, in a chain that, north of the Shiokari Pass, has left in this basin a thickness that does not yet fade.