Tochigi-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about a hundred and fifty-six thousand (155,549 in 2020). What I want to note first of all is that the sudden increase of fifty-seven thousand from 82,340 in 2005 to 139,262 in 2010 is not the result of people increasing naturally. It owes to the municipal area widening at a stroke through the 2010 merger, and the step in the figures mirrors that merger. That the number of schools jumped from 15 in 2009 to 25 in 2010 and thereafter to 30 is also from the same merger.

On that basis, looking inside the figures after the merger, it peaked at 159,211 in 2015 and has turned to a gentle decline, to 155,549 in 2020. Those under 15 fell gently, from 17,832 in 2010, after the merger, to 17,322 in 2020. The share aged 65 and over rose from 19.6% (2000) to 31.6% (2020), passing three in ten. The household-with-children share is 20.8% (2020). The Childcare Waitlist has been zero in recent years, and the Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.69 in fiscal 2023. The figure of a municipal area widened by merger quietly growing older appears in the numbers. Why it took this shape cannot be seen without going back over the history of water transport and the prefecture name.

Tochigi’s skeleton is set by the water transport of a single river. The Uzuma River, flowing through the town, was a waterway tying the area with Edo by boat. It is handed down that the water transport began when, in the Genna era, cargo was unloaded at this land’s riverbank in the course of moving the remains of Tokugawa Ieyasu to Nikko, and in time the Uzuma River water transport developed as a trunk of distribution tying the Kanto and the northern Kanto. Wealth from Edo came up this river and raised a commercial city, and along the river the storehouses of merchant families that had stored up wealth lined the banks. The townscape of storehouses called, alongside Kawagoe and Sawara, a “Little Edo” is what this water transport brought.

This prosperity as a commercial city drew in a certain centrality. In 1873 the prefectural office of Tochigi was first placed on this land of Tochigi. The prefecture’s name too derives from this place name. That is, Tochigi is the birthplace of the prefecture name “Tochigi Prefecture,” and was for a time the center of the prefecture. But in 1884 the prefectural office was moved to Utsunomiya. This town let go of the seat of being the prefecture’s center. A water-transport commercial city, the origin of the prefecture name, and once holding the prefectural office — this thickness of history is the town’s foundation.

What decided the present shape of the municipal area is the Heisei merger. In March 2010 Tochigi-shi merged with several surrounding towns, and further, in 2014, incorporated Iwafune town. The city centered on a water-transport commercial city widened into a wide-area city of the south of the prefecture, joining the surrounding towns. That the number of schools jumped from 15 to 30 is because the school networks of several old towns were bound together in this merger. It raised a commercial city by water transport, became the origin of the prefecture name, gave up the prefectural office, and widened by merger. The Uzuma River becoming a trunk of distribution with Edo is what drew, to this land, both the prosperity of the commercial city and the status of being the prefecture’s center.

What characterizes Tochigi-shi is that, after the municipal area widened at a stroke through the merger, the population turned to decline and aging passed three in ten. From 2010, after the merger, to 2020, the total population passed its peak and decreased gently, and those under 15 thinned steadily too. Without a large inflow, the generation already living there grows old just as it is — a form common to matured regional cities.

The figures of living infrastructure mirror both the merger and the maturing. Elementary schools jumped at a stroke from 15 to 30 in the merger, and thereafter have moved around 30. This is, rather than consolidation, a form in which the school networks of several old town areas were bound together just as they were in the merger. The Childcare Waitlist has moved at zero in recent years. But this, rather than the result of meeting demand to the full, has a strong aspect of supply and demand balancing amid a gently thinning number of children. The commercial city that flourished by water transport remained, even after giving up the prefectural office, one of the centers of the south of the prefecture, but it has now entered a matured phase poor in inflow. The total population turns to decline, children decrease gently, and only aging advances. The present of this city, which entered a matured phase after widening by merger, cannot be grasped by taking out any single number. Bind the three together and the town’s structure comes into view.

In Tochigi several faces water transport brought overlap. One is the history of a commercial city that flourished tied to Edo by the Uzuma River water transport, the townscape of storehouses lining the river still conveying that memory as a “Little Edo” alongside Kawagoe and Sawara. Another is the history as the prefecture’s center — being the birthplace of the prefecture name “Tochigi Prefecture” and the land where the prefectural office was first placed in the early Meiji era. And the urban areas of the old town areas bound together in the Heisei merger coexist here and there in the wide municipal area.

From a water-transport commercial city, to the center of the prefecture name and the prefectural office, and on to a regional city widened by merger after giving up that seat. When the water of the Uzuma River carried up wealth from Edo, this town gave birth to the prefecture’s name and was a center holding the prefectural office. More than a hundred and forty years since it gave up the prefectural office to Utsunomiya, the riverside storehouses remain just as they were, and now draw people as the townscape of a Little Edo. The river that carried cargo now carries memory.