Koriyama-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 328,000 (327,692 in 2020). Over the five years from 335,444 in 2015, it fell by a little over seven thousand seven hundred. It is a city that, while keeping a scale of more than three hundred thousand, has entered a phase of gentle population decline.

What I want to note here is that the aging stays on the lower side compared with regional cities of the same scale. The share aged 65 and over rose from 24.4% (2015) to 26.4% (2020), but set against Iwaki or Asahikawa it is at a gentler stage. On the other hand, those under 15 fell by a little over two thousand seven hundred in five years, from 41,865 (2015) to 39,177 (2020). The land price of residential areas, at about 73,000 yen per m², is at a high level within Fukushima Prefecture. The Fiscal Capacity Index is 0.82 — below 1.0, yet a level whose own tax revenue covers much of expenditure, which is on the thick side compared with other cities in the prefecture. The Childcare Waitlist is 0 (2025), and the household-with-children share, at 20.4% (2020), is higher than Iwaki or Asahikawa. Why these numbers take this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of the post town and the Asaka Canal.

Koriyama’s skeleton begins from drawing water by human hands into a wilderness that had none. In the Edo era, Koriyama was a post town of the Oshu Kaido where some five thousand people lived, but it was poor in water, a stretch ringed by wilderness. The geographic disadvantage of having no water was the very thing that would later decide this town’s fate in reverse.

The turning point was a single canal drawn in as a state project of the Meiji era. The Asaka Canal, begun in 1879, drew the water of Lake Inawashiro into the wilderness as the first state-run reclamation-and-canal works. After about three years of construction, the ceremony of letting the water through was held on October 1, 1882. The water drawn in was used not only for farming but for industrial water, hydroelectric power and drinking. In the terms of economic geography it is a typical case of public investment building up the conditions that then drew in an industrial agglomeration. In 1898 a spinning mill rose on hydroelectric power using the fall of the water, and cheap electricity drew in firms beginning with spinning, so that commerce and industry grew rapidly.

The third foundation is transport. From the Meiji into the Showa era, road networks such as National Routes 4 and 49 and rail networks such as the Tohoku Main Line, the Ban’etsu East and West lines and the Suigun Line gathered at Koriyama, and the town became a hub of transport for Tohoku. Where people and goods met, commerce flourished, and Koriyama came to be called the “commercial capital,” the “economic capital of the prefecture.” Its commercial sales rank first in the prefecture. A canal drew water into a post town that had none, that cheap electricity drew in industry, and at the hub where people and goods gathered, commerce flourished — the disadvantage of having no water drew in the reversal of drawing water by human hands. The order is the other way around.

What characterizes Koriyama is that even as the total population falls by seven thousand seven hundred, the household-with-children share, at 20.4%, is held thicker than Iwaki (19.3%) or Asahikawa (16.7%). The aging rate too, at 26.4%, stays on the gentler side among regional cities of the same scale. While in a phase of population decline, the center of gravity of the composition has not swung toward the older side as far as in other three-hundred-thousand cities.

The Childcare Waitlist is 0 (2025). The path by which a waitlist reaches zero is not single: some towns reach it by building the receiving capacity up thick, while in others the supply-demand balance eases as the absolute number of children thins. In Koriyama too, those under 15 fell by two thousand seven hundred in five years, and in that sense the decline of children and the easing of supply and demand are not unrelated. Yet read together with the fact that the household-with-children share is thick even within the prefecture and that aging stays at a gentle stage, the same “zero waitlist” here rests on a population composition somewhat different from Iwaki or Asahikawa. Pull out a single number and settle it as “easy to raise children,” and one overlooks the difference in the population composition beneath it.

The functions Koriyama holds within a single municipal area are not single. One is the agglomeration of commerce and industry that grew upon the water the Asaka Canal drew in. The cheap electricity of hydroelectric power drew in industries such as spinning, and that thickness sustained commerce, so that Koriyama became the foremost commercial city in the prefecture. October 1, the day the canal’s water was let through, is still remembered as this town’s starting point.

The other is the function of a hub of transport. National Routes 4 and 49 and the Tohoku Main Line, the Ban’etsu East and West lines and the Suigun Line gather at Koriyama, shaping a place where the people and goods of Tohoku meet. The prefectural capital of Fukushima Prefecture is Fukushima City (7201), but in commercial sales Koriyama ranks first in the prefecture and has been called the “economic capital of the prefecture.” That the political center and the economic center are split between separate cities is the figure of a difference of history left just as it is on the map. From a post town that had no water to a commercial capital the canal raised — the origin of “reversing an unfavorable geography by public works” has laid the functions of industry, commerce and a transport hub over a single city. The very disadvantage of having no water drew in the reversal of drawing water by human hands, and gave rise to today’s thickness.