Tsuchiura-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 142,000 (142,074 in 2020). This city’s population swelled from 134,702 in 2000 through 135,058 in 2005 to 143,839 in 2010 after incorporating a neighboring area, then moved within a roughly flat band thereafter, at 140,804 in 2015 and 142,074 in 2020. It is the curve of a lakeside town held without greatly increasing or decreasing.

Looking inside the figures, the middle-range figure proper to a city of southern Ibaraki appears. The share aged 65 and over, at 28.8% in 2020, is below three in ten, and the household-with-children share, at 18.3%, is somewhat low. The Childcare Waitlist has been zero in recent years. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.81 in fiscal 2023 — a level whose own tax revenue covers about eight-tenths of expenditure, high for a regional city. The castle town of Kasumigaura holds its population and keeps its fiscal stamina on the higher side. Why it can hold them cannot be grasped without going back over the history of Tsuchiura Castle, water transport, and the air group.

Tsuchiura’s skeleton is set by the geography of the west bank of Lake Kasumigaura, the second-largest lake in Japan. Built in the Muromachi era and enlarged and rebuilt in stages in the Edo era, Tsuchiura Castle never sank even when struck again and again by floods, and because it looked like the shell of a turtle floating on the water it was called “Kijo,” the turtle castle. As a castle town that was one with the lake, this town set out. The water transport of Kasumigaura carried people and goods to this castle town and gave it the character of a node of traffic via the lake.

On the shore of that lake, a modern history of aviation overlaps. In 1922 the lakeshore of Kasumigaura was reclaimed and the Kasumigaura Naval Air Group was established, where the training of pilots was carried out. In 1940 the Tsuchiura Naval Air Group became independent and set out as the specialist institution for the Yokaren, the preparatory flight training of young aviators. The geography of Kasumigaura — a broad water surface and flat land — was chosen as the ground for aviation training. The lakeshore was both a castle town and a land that trained pilots.

With this history of water transport and aviation at its back, modern Tsuchiura and after has gathered the functions of commerce and administration as the central city of the west bank of Kasumigaura. Beginning with the castle town of Kijo, becoming a node of the water transport of Kasumigaura, and placing an air group on the lakeshore — the second-largest water surface in Japan has drawn the castle town, the water transport and the air group all to this bank.

What characterizes Tsuchiura-shi is that, where many regional cities lose population, it has roughly held a flat population. Over twenty years the population, through some rise and fall, has been nearly held, and the share aged 65 and over too stays at a level below three in ten. The rail toward Tokyo and the nearness to neighboring cities such as Tsukuba, together with the functions of commerce and administration as the central city of the west bank of Kasumigaura, can be read as having sustained the population.

That hub character shows in the fiscal figures too. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.81 is a level covering about eight-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue, on the higher side for a regional city. The commerce and industry gathered as the central city of the west bank of the lake can be read as lending thickness to the tax source. The Childcare Waitlist too has held at zero in recent years. The castle town of Kasumigaura now roughly holds its population, with aging below three in ten and its fiscal stamina kept on the higher side. A flat population, aging not too deep, finances on the higher side — this stability as the central city of the west bank of Kasumigaura is not something to be spoken of by pulling out any single number. Only where the three mesh does the town’s present location first come into view.

In Tsuchiura several faces the lake brought overlap. One is the history of the castle town of Kijo, which looked like a turtle floating on the water, carrying the origin of a node of the water transport of Kasumigaura. Another is the character of the central city of the west bank of Kasumigaura, which has gathered the functions of commerce and administration. And the naval air group placed on the lakeshore gives this town the memory of a modern land that trained pilots.

From the castle town of Kijo, to a node of the water transport of Kasumigaura, to a land that held an air group on the lakeshore, to the central city of the west bank of the lake. The second-largest water surface in Japan has drawn the water transport, the aviation and the urban functions to this bank. Stand at the moat’s edge of the castle ruins and turn toward the lake, and one can tell that the air of the broad water — where boats laden with cargo once came and went, and aircraft once took off splitting the lake’s surface — still remains somewhere in the town.