Yokote-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 86,000 (85,555 in 2020). What I want to note first here is that the surge of more than sixty-three thousand, from 40,521 in 2000 to 103,652 in 2005, is not the result of people naturally increasing. It is because in 2005 the old Yokote City newly merged with seven neighboring towns and villages; the step in the numbers reflects that great merger. Before the merger the old Yokote City had a population of about forty thousand; through the merger it became one with the towns and villages across the basin, and both city area and population widened all at once.

Upon that, look at the content after the merger, and from 103,652 in 2005 to 85,555 in 2020 it has fallen by more than eighteen thousand over fifteen years. Those under 15 thinned by more than a third, from 12,822 in 2005 to 8,532 in 2020. The share aged 65 and over reached 39.0% in 2020, nearing four-tenths. The share of households with children was 20.4% (2020), the Childcare Waitlist has been zero in recent years, and the Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.33 in fiscal 2023. The numbers show a snow-country castle town, widened by the great merger, rapidly growing old. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back to the history of the castle town and the snow.

Yokote’s frame is set by its history as a snow-country castle town. In 1602, on the occasion of the Satake house being moved to Akita, Yokote Castle was positioned as a subsidiary castle of Akita’s Kubota Castle, and from this point it developed as a castle town. The castle town was divided by the Yokote River: on the right bank lay the Uchimachi where the samurai lived, on the left bank the Sotomachi where merchants and artisans lived. This town layout, in which the martial and the mercantile were arranged apart across the river, was the town’s first foundation.

What grew up in that deep-snow castle town is the Little New Year observance called "kamakura." A water deity is enshrined inside a chamber made of snow, and within it children drink sweet sake or grill rice cakes and welcome those who come to visit — this folk observance is said to hold a history of some four hundred and fifty years. The land’s condition of heavy snow, joined to faith and daily life, gave birth to a distinctive annual observance. Snow shaped this town’s second character.

What decided the form of the present city area was the great Heisei-era merger. In 2005 the old Yokote City newly merged with Masuda, Hiraka, Omonogawa, Omori, Jumonji, Sannai, and Taiyu of Hiraka district, widening into a broad city area that bundles together the whole of the Yokote Basin. The human layer of a subsidiary-castle castle town of the Satake house, and the land’s layer of the kamakura that heavy snow raised, were wrapped, by the Heisei merger, into a single city together with the whole basin.

What sets Yokote apart is that, after its city area widened all at once through the merger, its population is rapidly falling and its aging is nearing four-tenths. In the fifteen years after the merger the total population fell by more than eighteen thousand, and those under 15 thinned by more than a third. Across a city area that holds many farming districts of a deep-snow basin, the thinning of births and the outflow of younger generations work at the same time, and strongly. It is the shape of rapid shrinkage common to the snow-country cities of Tohoku.

The numbers of daily-life infrastructure mirror this shrinkage too. Elementary schools leapt from several to twenty-six with the 2005 great merger, the school networks of the joined towns and villages bundled together as they were. After that they fell in stages in step with the great decline of children, and in recent years have fallen to about fourteen. It is the shape of schools that increased all at once, then headed back toward their original scale along with the decline of children. The Childcare Waitlist has moved at zero in recent years, but this owes strongly to the side in which the absolute number of children fell greatly and room opened up in capacity. Beginning as a subsidiary-castle castle town of the Satake house, known for the snow kamakura, the town — after holding the whole basin through the great merger — is now within a rapid shrinkage. Total population in steep decline, children greatly fewer, aging nearing four-tenths. These do not happen separately; they are the separate appearances of one pressure, in which the thinning of births and the outflow of younger generations work at the same time across the farming districts of a deep-snow basin.

The character Yokote holds is not one. One is its character as a castle town centered on Yokote Castle, which was a subsidiary castle of the Satake house, where a town layout divided across the Yokote River into the samurai’s Uchimachi and the merchants’ Sotomachi conveys this town’s making to the present. Another is "kamakura," the snow observance continuing for some four hundred and fifty years, a distinctive annual observance born of the land’s condition of heavy snow joined to faith and daily life. And the city area bundled by the 2005 great merger holds together, in one city, the castle town and the old towns and villages across the basin.

Yokote is a basin town where snow and castle town overlap. From the castle town of the Satake house’s subsidiary castle, to the snow kamakura observance, to a city area that held the whole basin through the Heisei great merger — the history of "a subsidiary-castle castle town placed in a deep-snow basin, where snow gave birth to a distinctive observance" drew the castle-town layout and the snow observance onto the same basin. The human design that divided the samurai’s Uchimachi from the merchants’ Sotomachi, and the land’s condition of heavy snow, are here woven together into one.