Kasama-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about seventy-three thousand (73,173 in 2020). This city’s population has a large step from the merger. Kasama City was born in 2006 from the new merger of the old Kasama City, Tomobe town and Iwama town, and what was 29,668 in 2005 for the old Kasama City alone became 79,409 in 2010 after the merger — the figure of the three municipalities combined. Seen post-merger, it fell by about six thousand over ten years, from 79,409 in 2010, through 76,739 in 2015, to 73,173 in 2020.

Looking inside the figures, aging is somewhat advanced for a Kanto city. The share aged 65 and over is 32.0% in 2020. The household-with-children share is 20.4%, and the Childcare Waitlist has been zero in recent years. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.58 in fiscal 2023, on the side that covers a little under six-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue. The Inari shrine town and the town of pottery bear a gentle population decline and middle-range finances. Why that is so cannot be guessed without returning to the history of the Inari shrine, the castle town and the kiln.

Kasama’s skeleton is set by three cores — faith, castle town and pottery — overlaid on the same land. The first core is Kasama Inari Shrine. Counted as one of the three great Inari of Japan and gathering, as a guardian deity of the promotion of industry, some three million five hundred thousand worshippers a year, this shrine made Kasama, from old, a precinct gate town where people gathered. In the terms of economic geography it is a typical case of the “monzen-machi,” a town shaped by the waves of worshippers.

The second core is the castle. Kasama Castle is said to have been built by Kasama Tokitomo; after Sekigahara a hereditary Tokugawa lord entered, and in 1747 the Makino clan became castle lords and held it as their seat until the Meiji Restoration. The Inari shrine received the deep reverence of successive domain lords, and faith and castle town together sustained the town.

The third core is pottery. Kasama-yaki, which began in the mid-Edo era, is known as the oldest kiln district in the Kanto and has a free style as its character. The kiln opened in the castle town still shapes this town’s character as a home of ceramic art. And the present city was born in 2006 from the merger of the old Kasama City, Tomobe town and Iwama town. Beginning with the Inari shrine town, becoming a castle town, opening the oldest kiln in the Kanto, and three municipalities becoming one. The waves of people the shrine gathers — three million five hundred thousand worshippers a year — drew the castle town and the kiln alike to this land.

What characterizes Kasama-shi is that the post-merger population decline is gentle, and it keeps the character of a precinct gate town and a home of pottery. It stayed at a decline of about six thousand over ten years; the aging rate is 32.0%, and the household-with-children share is 20.4%. The location at the center of Ibaraki Prefecture, the Inari shrine gathering three million five hundred thousand worshippers a year, and the thickness as a home of ceramic art can be read as having, on the strength of the waves of tourism and faith, made the town’s shrinking gentle.

That stability shows in the fiscal figures too. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.58 is a level covering a little under six-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue, keeping a middle-range stamina. Tourism, ceramic art and manufacturing can be read as lending a degree of thickness to the tax source. The Childcare Waitlist too has held at zero in recent years. The Inari shrine town and the town of pottery now bear a gentle population decline and middle-range finances at once. A gentle population decline, somewhat advanced aging, middle-range finances — this gait of a town of faith and pottery does not form an image from any single number alone. Only where the three overlap does the town’s present location come into view.

In Kasama several faces faith and pottery brought overlap. One is the history of the precinct gate town of Kasama Inari Shrine, one of the three great Inari of Japan, holding a core of faith that gathers three million five hundred thousand worshippers a year. Another is the character of the castle town of the Makino clan, keeping the memory of castle town and Inari sustaining the town as one. And the kiln of Kasama-yaki, said to be the oldest in the Kanto, gives this town the face of a home of ceramic art.

From the Inari shrine town, to the castle town of the Makino clan, to the home of pottery that opened the oldest kiln in the Kanto, and on to a city where three municipalities became one. Pressed to the root, the waves of people of a single shrine that gathers three million five hundred thousand worshippers a year sustained the castle town, called the kiln, and raised even a home of ceramic art at the precinct gate. The flow of people that faith gathered has given rise, one by one, to this town’s manifold faces.