Ichinoseki-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 112,000 (111,932 in 2020). What I want to note first here is that this town’s population has two steps. The doubling from 63,510 in 2000 to 125,818 in 2005 is due to the 2005 merger of the old Ichinoseki City and other municipalities of the prefecture’s south. Further, the slight rise from 118,578 in 2010 to 121,583 in 2015 includes the 2011 annexation of Fujisawa Town. This town has passed through two mergers to reach its present city area.

Upon that, look at the trend after the mergers and population has turned to decline. From 121,583 in 2015 to 111,932 in 2020, nearly ten thousand were lost in five years. Those under 15 fell greatly from 16,748 after the merger in 2005 to 11,563 in 2020, and the aging rate reached a high level nearing four-tenths, from 21.0% in 2000 to 36.9% in 2020. The share of households with children was 19.6%, the Childcare Waitlist has been zero in recent years, and the Fiscal Capacity Index was a low 0.36 in fiscal 2023. A castle town of the basin, while widening its city area through two mergers, is in the midst of a deep shrinkage and aging. This row of numbers runs true only when one returns to its history as a branch-domain castle town.

Ichinoseki’s frame is set by one house that succeeded to this ground as a branch domain of the Sendai domain. In 1682 Tamura Takeaki moved here from Iwanuma in Miyagi, and thereafter, until the Meiji Restoration, eleven generations of the Tamura clan inherited this Ichinoseki as their domain seat. The Ichinoseki domain was a branch domain of the Sendai domain, holding thirty thousand koku across the two districts of Iwai and Kurihara. The lord’s residence was placed at the eastern foot of Mount Tsuriyama; a water moat was run around it; and a castle town took shape, hemmed about by samurai residences. A branch-domain castle seat placed at the center of the basin — this is the foundation of this town.

Among what that castle town nurtured is learning. From the Otsuki family, the family of physicians of the Ichinoseki domain, three exceptional men came forth from the early-modern into the modern era, later honored as the "Three Sages of the Otsuki family." The eldest brother, Gentaku, learned Dutch-style medicine from Sugita Genpaku and the Dutch language from Maeno Ryotaku, wrote an introductory work on Dutch learning, and opened the country’s first private school of Dutch learning in Edo. His son Bankei was a Confucian scholar who early advocated opening the country, and his grandson Fumihiko, over sixteen years, completed "Genkai," the country’s first modern Japanese dictionary. A branch-domain castle seat of the basin gave birth to a lineage of Dutch learning and of Japanese linguistics.

And the present city area was shaped by two mergers. In 2005 the old Ichinoseki City and other municipalities of the prefecture’s south merged, and further, in 2011, Fujisawa Town — which for fiscal reasons could not join the original merger — was annexed. Beginning from the castle town of eleven generations of the Tamura clan, giving birth to the Three Sages of the Otsuki family, and gaining a wide city area through two mergers — this town’s form stands atop its history as a branch-domain castle town.

What sets Ichinoseki apart is that, while it gained a wide city area through two mergers, within it a deep population decline and aging advance. That nearly ten thousand were lost in the five years from 2015 to 2020, after the mergers, can be read as an expression of the wide city area of the prefecture’s south carrying, in each part, the outflow of younger generations and the thinning of births against a background of farming and small and medium industry. That the aging rate is 36.9%, nearing four-tenths, places it on the high side even among the cities of the country.

The numbers of daily-life infrastructure are inscribed with the two mergers. Elementary schools were 12 in 2004, before the merger, but with the 2005 merger leapt to 41, the school networks of the joined municipalities bundled together as they were. After that, school consolidation advanced in step with the decline of children, and by 2023 they had fallen to 21. It is the shape of a widened school network folded up greatly in step with the number of children. The Childcare Waitlist has moved at zero in recent years. The total population falls, the children fall greatly, and aging nears four-tenths. These are differing sides of one reality — a wide city area of the prefecture’s south, with farming and small and medium industry at its back, shrinking. The great school consolidation, too, will be misread in meaning unless bundled with that shrinkage.

In Ichinoseki several layers of differing origin overlap. One is its history as the castle town of eleven generations of the Tamura clan, a branch domain of the Sendai domain — an early-modern castle seat placed at the center of the basin, whose frame the present townscape carries on. Another is the character of a lineage of learning, having produced the Three Sages of the Otsuki family from a family of domain physicians. Two modern fields of learning — Dutch learning and Japanese linguistics — were born from this branch-domain castle seat. And its position at the prefecture’s southernmost tip gives this town the character of a key point of transport on the border with Miyagi.

A branch-domain castle seat, with a water moat run around the eastern foot of Mount Tsuriyama, opened, and from its family of physicians came three generations: Gentaku, who wrote an introductory work on Dutch learning; Bankei, who advocated opening the country; and Fumihiko, who completed the modern Japanese dictionary "Genkai." From a thirty-thousand-koku castle town set in the very middle of the basin through which the Kitakami River flows, two modern fields of learning — Dutch learning and Japanese linguistics — rise up. Now, in the trace of that castle seat, the wide city area of the prefecture’s south, bundled by two mergers, spreads, and, holding the memory of the learning the castle town nurtured, slowly loses people.