Sunagawa-shi

In the most recent census the population stood at about sixteen thousand (16,486 in 2020). From 21,072 in 2000, through 20,068 in 2005, 19,056 in 2010, and 17,694 in 2015, it fell to 16,486 in 2020 — more than four thousand people lost in two decades.

Look inside the figures and the shape of an industrial city — grown on the neighboring valley's coal and built into coal chemistry — emerges. The share of residents aged 65 and over rose from 23.6% in 2000 to 38.8% in 2020, climbing roughly fifteen points in two decades to approach four in ten. The share of child-rearing households was 14.1% in 2020. The employment rate was 51.2% in 2020. Childcare waitlists were zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.29 in FY2023, meaning its own tax revenue covers only about three-tenths of expenditure. An industrial city opened by the neighboring valley's coal and built into coal chemistry shows, in its numbers, a town shedding population while its age rises. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without tracing the heritage of coal, chemistry, and green.

The frame of this town rests on three faces: a starting point as a railway station that carried the neighboring valley's coal, a chemical industry built on that coal as its raw material, and the greenery planted after the age of coal had passed. The first layer is the railway station. This town held no coal beneath its own feet. Its rise began in the mid-Meiji era, when a railway station was placed here on the middle Ishikari River to ship out — to a coastal port — the coal mined in the adjoining valley. Not the coal itself, but the station on the road that carried it; around that station, people and goods gathered and a town grew.

Upon that, a chemical industry was laid. Using the coal that arrived here as raw material, a chemical industry arose in this town. Neither burning coal nor merely carrying it, but turning coal into a chemical feedstock — the coal mined in the neighboring valley was reassembled here into a different kind of value. When the age of coal receded, the town chose a third face. While remaining an industrial city, it took the path of planting greenery and arranging a pleasant environment, and was chosen as Hokkaido's only model area for a pleasant-environment city. The station carrying the neighboring valley's coal, the coal-chemistry industry, and the green — all three faces were born from a single absence: having no coal beneath its own feet. As a town that did not dig but carried, transformed, and tended, Sunagawa has repeatedly reassembled what came from outside into a different value.

What marks Sunagawa-shi is that, carrying a heritage of the neighboring valley's coal and coal chemistry, it has shed more than four thousand people in two decades. From 21,072 in 2000 to 16,486 in 2020, the decline is more than twenty percent. The neighboring valley's coal, the source of its rise, ceased to be dug as the age of coal passed, and the station that carried it and the chemical industry built on it both lost their momentum. A town with no coal beneath its own feet, raised on the support of the neighboring valley's coal, can be read as having lost one root of its prosperity when that coal departed. That the share of residents aged 65 and over approached four in ten at 38.8% in 2020 is one sign of this.

At the same time, childcare waitlists were zero in both 2024 and 2025, and the share of child-rearing households was 14.1% in 2020. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.29 is a level at which its own tax revenue covers only about three-tenths of expenditure, showing the depth of reliance on the local allocation tax. After the age of coal, the chemical and manufacturing industries that remained in this town, and its course as an environmental city that tended its greenery, support its daily life to some degree. The post-coal industrial city is now raising the town's age while shedding population. The decline is more than twenty percent, aging approaches four in ten, and fiscal strength is about three-tenths. These figures do not move separately; they all arrive at the same single point — the departure of the neighboring valley's coal that had been the source of its rise. Picking out any one of them alone cannot trace the root of this town's decline.

In Sunagawa, three faces lie in layers. One is the starting point: a town that held no coal beneath its own feet and grew its center as a railway station carrying the coal of the adjoining valley. Another is its character as a place that built a chemical industry on the coal that arrived here. And when the age of coal receded, it planted greenery and named itself Hokkaido's only pleasant-environment city. Its position on the middle Ishikari River — astride the road linking the neighboring valley's coal to the coastal port — layered these three faces onto the town: the station that carried, the industry that transformed into chemistry, and the green.

In short, Sunagawa is a town with no coal beneath its feet that carried the neighbor's coal, turned it into chemistry, and laid greenery atop it. From a station carrying the neighboring valley's coal, to coal chemistry, to a pleasant-environment city — all of it extends from a single position: astride the road linking the neighboring valley's coal to the coastal port. Because it lay astride that road, it first became a station carrying coal; it reassembled the arriving coal into a chemical feedstock; and when the age of coal receded, it planted greenery while remaining an industrial city. Not digging, but carrying, transforming, and planting — each time it reassembled what arrived from the neighboring valley into a different value, Sunagawa redrew its face anew, three times over.