Nihonmatsu-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about fifty-four thousand (53,557 in 2020). Because this city set out at the end of 2005 when the castle town and three neighboring towns newly became one, the step in population for the municipal area appears between 2005 and 2010, the span in which the merger is mirrored in the Census. The population of the castle town alone was 35,107 in 2005, and the post-merger municipal area was 59,871 in 2010, 58,162 in 2015 and 53,557 in 2020 — falling.

Looking inside the figures, the figure of a castle-town city overlooking the mountain of fire appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 19.8% for the castle town alone in 2000 to 34.4% for the post-merger municipal area in 2020 — a rise of about fifteen points over twenty years, far exceeding three in ten. The household-with-children share is 21.0% (2020), and the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.46 in fiscal 2023 — a level where its own tax revenue does not reach half of expenditure, with a large degree of reliance on the local allocation tax. This castle-town city that holds Kasumigajo has lost population and deepened in age after the merger. Why that came to be comes into view only by entering into the history of the castle, the mountain of fire and the merger.

This town’s skeleton is set by the landform of a height overlooking the mountain of fire to the west, the hundred-thousand-koku castle placed on that height, the chrysanthemum-growing tradition carried on in the castle town, and the merger of four municipalities. The opening layer is the castle. To the west of the city rises a mountain of fire sung of in a book of poems. On a height overlooking that mountain, in the Edo era, a castle that was the seat of a hundred-thousand-koku domain was placed. That castle, called by a name meaning that mist hangs over it, is known alongside several famous castles within the prefecture, and its ruins still remain as a national Historic Site. A castle overlooking the mountain of fire was this town’s old center.

To this castle town a chrysanthemum-growing tradition was carried on. Inheriting the castle-town tradition, chrysanthemums were grown in the castle town, and the festival that makes them into dolls grew to one of the largest in Japan. It is by this tradition that this town is called “the chrysanthemum castle town.” The path by which it became a city mirrors this town too. At the end of 2005 the castle town newly became one with three neighboring towns, and the present city set out. Upon a hundred-thousand-koku castle overlooking the mountain of fire, the chrysanthemum castle-town tradition was laid, and in the Heisei era four municipalities further became one. A castle was placed on a height overlooking the mountain of fire to the west — from there, everything about this town begins.

What characterizes Nihonmatsu-shi is that, while holding the history of Kasumigajo and the mountain of fire, it loses population and advances in age after the merger. The 35,107 of the castle town alone in 2005 became 59,871 for the post-merger municipal area in 2010, falling thereafter to 53,557 in 2020 — a loss of a little over six thousand over ten years. Even in this town known as a hundred-thousand-koku castle town and as a chrysanthemum castle town, a part of the younger generation can be read as having moved to larger cities or toward Fukushima and Koriyama, and, together with the aging of the surrounding towns added in the merger, the age of the whole town as having risen. That the share aged 65 and over, at 34.4% in 2020, far exceeds three in ten is an expression of this.

On the other hand, the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025, and the household-with-children share is 21.0% (2020). A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.46 is a level where its own tax revenue does not reach half of expenditure, showing the largeness of the reliance on the local allocation tax. The castle-town city that holds Kasumigajo now advances in age while losing population after the merger. A post-merger population decline, aging reaching the mid-three-in-ten range, finances not thick from tax revenue alone — the present of a castle-town city overlooking the mountain of fire is not something to be spoken of by pulling out any single number. Only where the three overlap does the town’s present location come into view.

In Nihonmatsu several faces of differing origin overlap. One is the history of a castle town that placed a castle, the seat of a hundred-thousand-koku domain, on a height overlooking, to the west, the mountain of fire sung of in a book of poems. Another is the character of “the chrysanthemum castle town,” inheriting the castle-town tradition, growing chrysanthemums and making them into dolls in a festival that has grown to one of the largest in Japan. And in the basin of the Abukuma River, the very landform of a height overlooking the mountain of fire to the west became the foundation that called the castle and raised the chrysanthemum castle town.

From a castle overlooking the mountain of fire, to the chrysanthemum castle-town tradition, and on to the merger of four municipalities — a height overlooking the mountain of fire to the west called the castle and raised the castle-town tradition. The height that once gathered people and goods as the seat of a hundred-thousand-koku domain now quietly raises its age within the municipal area widened by merger. The same height holds, in one continuous span, the memory of the castle town’s bustle and the present of a falling population.