Nasushiobara-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about a hundred and fifteen thousand (115,210 in 2020). What I want to note first here is that this city’s population statistics begin in 2005. Nasushiobara-shi is a city born in 2005 from the merger of Kuroiso City and two towns, and does not connect continuously with the earlier independent municipalities. Seen from after the merger, it swelled slightly once, from 115,032 in 2005 to 117,812 in 2010, and returned to 115,210 in 2020. Nearly level over fifteen years — a rare form amid the many regional cities whose populations decline.

On the other hand, even as the total population holds level, the children are decreasing. Those under 15 fell by about three thousand seven hundred over fifteen years, from 17,955 (2005) to 14,265 (2020). The aging rate rose from 17.0% (2005) to 27.8% (2020). The household-with-children share is 21.9%, the Childcare Waitlist has been zero in recent years, and the Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.75 in fiscal 2023, on the high side among regional cities. The figure of a highland town holding its total while aging on the inside appears in the numbers. Why it took this form cannot be seen without going back over the history of reclaiming the wilderness.

Nasushiobara’s skeleton is set by the modern reclamation that turned a wilderness into farmland by human hands. The Nasu-no-hara plain is an alluvial fan caught between the Naka and the Houki rivers, originally a broad waterless wilderness. The rain soaked at once into the ground, and it was a land hard both for opening fields and for drawing drinking water. This wilderness came to be reclaimed in earnest from the 1880s, under the Meiji government’s policy of promoting industry.

What carried that reclamation forward at a stroke was water. In 1885, through the efforts of Innami Josaku, Yaita Takeshi and others, the Nasu Canal — counted among the three great canals of Japan — was opened. Drawing water from the Naka River, this channel let water through the waterless wilderness, and the reclamation advanced rapidly. Pastures and fields spread, and it turned into a land where people could live. A single channel turned the wilderness into farmland.

And this highland holds one more face. With its cool climate at its back, Nasu came to be known as a summer retreat where an imperial villa was placed and the villas of political and business figures lined up. The present city was born in 2005 from the merger of Kuroiso City, Nishinasuno town and Shiobara town, and Nasushiobara Station of the Tohoku Shinkansen became its gateway. Beginning with a waterless wilderness, reclaimed by the Nasu Canal, becoming a highland summer retreat, and widened by merger. A single canal that drew water from the Naka River turned a waterless alluvial fan into farmland where people could live — and from there, today’s Nasushiobara begins.

What characterizes Nasushiobara-shi is that, while the post-merger total population holds nearly level, on its inside the children decrease and aging advances. That the total has hardly fallen over fifteen years can be read as the expression of how the location holding a Shinkansen station, and the pastures and industries born of the reclamation, have held back the outflow of population to a degree. Yet behind that, those under 15 fell by about three thousand seven hundred, and the aging rate rose by over ten points in fifteen years. Even where the town’s head count is held, its inside is surely aging.

The figures of living infrastructure mirror this transition too. There were 25 elementary schools right after the merger in 2005, but with the gentle decrease of children, consolidation advanced, falling to 17 by 2023. Even where the total holds level, the school network has quietly adjusted to the number of children. The Childcare Waitlist has moved at zero in recent years. The town born of reclaiming a wilderness and become a highland summer retreat now, with a Shinkansen station at its back, holds its total while gently thinning its layer of children. Behind a level total population, the children decrease and aging advances — while the location holding a Shinkansen station and the pastures and industries born of the reclamation hold back the outflow of the total, on its inside the changing of the generations surely advances. Even where the town’s whole head count is held, its inside is aging.

In Nasushiobara several faces the reclamation brought overlap. One is the history of a modern reclaimed land that turned a waterless wilderness into farmland with the Nasu Canal, and today’s spread of pastures and dairy farming lies on the extension of that reclamation. Another is the character of a summer retreat with a cool highland at its back, holding the face of an imperial villa and a villa district. And it holds a junction of transport — a station of the Tohoku Shinkansen — directly tied to the metropolitan sphere.

From the waterless Nasu-no-hara plain, to reclamation by the Nasu Canal, to a highland summer retreat, and on to a post-merger city holding a Shinkansen station. Pressed to its root, it was the single fact that a channel drawn in 1885 from the Naka River let water through a barren alluvial fan, where the rain too soaked at once into the ground, that spread the pastures, called in the summer retreat, and laid the foundation of a city where a hundred and ten thousand people live. Whether or not a single channel was drawn divided whether or not there is a town on this highland.