Mikasa-shi

In the most recent Population Census the population is about 8,000 (8,040 in 2020). From 13,561 in 2000, through 11,927 in 2005, 10,221 in 2010, and 9,076 in 2015, it fell to 8,040 in 2020 — a loss of more than forty percent over twenty years. As befits a Sorachi city from which the age of coal has departed, the slope is steep.

Looking inside the figures, the shape of the valley city where Hokkaido’s first coal mine and railway were born appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 34.1% in 2000 to 47.5% in 2020 — up some thirteen points over twenty years, nearing five in ten. Households with children make up a low 12.4% (2020). The employment rate was 42.6% in 2020. The Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.19 in fiscal 2023 — its own tax revenue covers only about two-tenths of expenditure, with an extremely large dependence on the local allocation tax. The numbers show the valley city that bore two firsts driving Hokkaido’s modern age losing forty percent of its population along with the age of coal. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without tracing the history of the coal mine and the railway.

This town’s skeleton is set by its starting point as Hokkaido’s first modern coal mine, by Hokkaido’s first railway laid to carry that coal, and by the end of the age of coal. The opening layer is the coal mine. In the early Meiji era, good-quality coal was found in this valley, and Hokkaido’s first modern coal mine opened its mouth. How to carry the mined coal out beyond the island — that question brought the next first to this valley.

That was the railway. To carry the coal to a port by the sea, under an engineer invited from across the ocean, Hokkaido’s first railway was laid from this valley. Linking the seaside town and Sapporo, and in time running through in full as far as this valley, that railway was the first track laid in Hokkaido and, as a railway for carrying industry, the first of its kind in Japan as well. Coal and railway — the two firsts that drove Hokkaido’s modern age — were both born from this single valley. But the age of coal did not last long. As the lead role in energy shifted from coal to something else, the valley’s coal mines closed one after another, and the railway that had carried the coal, too, finished its role and vanished from the valley. Hokkaido’s first modern coal mine, Hokkaido’s first railway, and the end of the age of coal. The two “firsts” that raised the north’s modern age were both born from this valley and both finished their roles with the same age of coal. Mikasa’s present is the figure of folding both ends — the rise and the retreat — into one valley.

What characterizes Mikasa-shi is that, while carrying the history of the coal mine and railway that drove Hokkaido’s modern age, it has lost more than forty percent of its population over twenty years. From 13,561 in 2000 to 8,040 in 2020, the loss exceeds forty percent. Because the town had staked its fortunes on coal — a single resource dug from the depths of the earth — when the age of coal departed, the people of the valley lost their jobs and left the town. The railway that had carried the coal also finished its role, severing one of the arteries linking the valley to the outside. A town that staked itself on a single resource loses people on a steep slope along with that resource — the very type of it appears in this valley. That the share aged 65 and over reached 47.5%, nearing five in ten, in 2020 is the consequence of that.

Meanwhile the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025, and households with children make up a low 12.4% (2020). A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.19 is a level whose own tax revenue covers only about two-tenths of expenditure, showing the extremely large dependence on the local allocation tax. In the valley the coal mine has left, new farming and food, and livelihoods that draw people to visit the legacy of the modern age, support the town’s life, but they fall far short of the thickness built in the age of coal. The valley city that the coal mine and railway have left is now raising the town’s age greatly while losing more than forty percent of its population. The population loss exceeds forty percent, aging nears five in ten, fiscal strength covers about two-tenths. All three harsh figures grow from the same root — “a wager on coal, a single resource.” Pulling out one figure and gazing at it alone cannot capture the whole of what happened in the valley.

Mikasa’s history concentrates into two “firsts.” One is the starting point: Hokkaido’s first modern coal mine opened its mouth in this valley. The other is its character: to carry that coal, Hokkaido’s first railway was laid from this valley, and as a railway for carrying industry it was the first of its kind in Japan. And both that coal mine and that railway finished their roles and vanished from the valley along with the age of coal. The landform of a valley at the eastern edge of the Ishikari Plain that held coal gave this single town the two firsts that drove Hokkaido’s modern age.

Put shortly, Mikasa is a town where the two firsts that raised the north’s modern age departed along with the coal. From Hokkaido’s first modern coal mine, to Hokkaido’s first railway, and on to the end of the age of coal — all of it was born from, and taken away by, the geography of “a Sorachi valley that held coal.” Because the valley held coal, the first coal mine opened its mouth; from the need to carry that coal, the first railway was laid; and when the age of coal departed, the two firsts vanished from the valley together. The two beginnings that once drove this country’s northern modern age are now replaced by the figure of a forty-percent population loss.