Honjiyo-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about seventy-nine thousand (78,569 in 2020). To read this city’s population, one must take the merger into account. In 2006 Honjo-shi merged anew with a neighboring town to become the present Honjo-shi. Before the merger, the old Honjo-shi’s population in 2005 was 60,807; across the merger, 2010 was 81,889. From there, through 77,881 in 2015 to 78,569 in 2020, it has been nearly held since the merger. The step in population between 2005 and 2010 in this article mirrors the widening of the municipal area through this merger.

Looking inside the figures, a form typical of a mid-scale city opening onto a plain appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 16.9% (2000) to 28.8% (2020), but, while many regional cities approach four in ten, it does not reach three in ten and keeps comparative youth. The household-with-children share is 19.7% (2020), and the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.72 in fiscal 2023 — a level covering a little over seven-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue, comparatively high for a mid-scale city. The figure of the busiest post town of the highway and a town of cocoons, nearly holding its population in the post-merger municipal area while keeping comparative youth, appears in the numbers. Why it took this form cannot be read without going back over the history of the post town and silk.

This town’s skeleton is set by the busiest post town of the highway, the Meiji-era collection of cocoons, and the Shinkansen station opened after passing through the age of silk. The central layer is the post town. In the Edo era, one of the two great highways joining Edo and Kyoto ran through this town, and it held the busiest post town — the one holding the most people and buildings of all those post towns. The people and goods coming and going on the highway gathered wealth and bustle in this land.

Upon this post town, the history of silk overlapped. With the coming of the Meiji era, sericulture lands spread around this land, and it became one of the nation’s foremost collection points, where cocoons gathered. This town’s cocoon market held a scale enough to support the great national silk mill built nearby, and the town was enriched by the wealth of silk and cocoons. But as the age of silk receded toward the end of the modern era, this prosperity too gradually became a thing of the past. And in recent years, a station of the Shinkansen joining Tokyo and the Japan Sea side was opened in this town, and the town gained a new node of transport. The path by which it became a city mirrors this town too. This land joined with neighboring villages in the 1950s to become a city, and in 2006 merged anew with a neighboring town and widened its municipal area. The busiest post town of the highway, the collection of cocoons, the rise and fall of silk, and the Shinkansen station — this town’s form stands upon the history of the post town and silk that the plain meeting the Tone River held.

What characterizes Honjo-shi is that, while bearing the history of the busiest post town of the highway and the collection of cocoons, it nearly holds the population of the post-merger municipal area and keeps comparative youth. From 81,889 in 2010, across the merger, to 78,569 in 2020, it fell by about three thousand over ten years, but still holds about seventy-eight thousand. The age of silk receded, but in addition to the central built-up area set by the busiest post town of the highway, the Shinkansen station opened in recent years ties this town to the edge of Tokyo’s commuting zone, and a certain number of young households have stayed — that, it can be read, has supported the holding of population without large collapse. That the share aged 65 and over does not reach three in ten at 28.8% in 2020, keeping comparative youth, is its expression too.

On the other hand, the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.72 is a level covering a little over seven-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue, comparatively high for a mid-scale city. The built-up area set by the highway post town, the income of residents who work nearby or in Tokyo, and the local industries can be read as supporting the tax source comparatively high. A post-merger population nearly flat, aging that does not reach three in ten, comparatively thick finances — the town of the post town and cocoons shows these three at once. Seeing only the flat population and feeling reassured, or seeing only the aging and feeling concerned, would each be a one-handed reading.

Honjo has layered several functions on a single plain. One is the history of the busiest post town — the one holding the most people and buildings — among the post towns of the highway joining Edo and Kyoto. Another is the character of a town of silk that, as one of the nation’s foremost collection points of cocoons in the Meiji era, supported the great national silk mill nearby; passing through the age of silk, it gained in recent years the node of transport of a Shinkansen station. And the location of a plain meeting the Tone River called in the highway and called in the collection of cocoons, gathering wealth and bustle in this land.

From the busiest post town of the highway, to one of the nation’s foremost collection points of cocoons, the rise and fall of silk, and the Shinkansen station — the condition “opening onto a plain meeting the Tone River, through which a highway joining Edo and Kyoto ran” called in the post town, and the bustle of that post town called in the collection of cocoons. The bustle of the post town called in the collection of cocoons, the wealth of cocoons supported the silk mill, and once silk receded the Shinkansen overlaid a new layer upon it. At the northern edge of Saitama Prefecture, while the substance of the bustle swapped from post town to cocoons and from cocoons to Shinkansen, this town has always remained some kind of “place where things gather.”