Higashimatsuyama-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about ninety-two thousand (91,791 in 2020). Its course is nearly flat. From 92,929 in 2000, after gently falling through 91,302 in 2005 and 90,099 in 2010, it has held around ninety thousand through 91,437 in 2015 to 91,791 in 2020.

Looking inside the figures, the form of a hill city one can commute to the city center from appears. The share aged 65 and over rose by about eighteen points over twenty years, from 13.2% (2000) to 30.9% (2020), passing three in ten. The household-with-children share is 19.5% (2020), and the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.80 in fiscal 2023 — a level covering eight-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue, on the upper side of middling. The figure of a market post of the jinya on the hills of Musashi, gaining a private railway and holding its population around ninety thousand while advancing its aging, appears in the numbers. Why it took this form cannot be read without going back over the history of the hills, the jinya, and the private railway.

This town’s skeleton is set by the landform of the hills north of the Musashino, by the market post and jinya that stood on those hills, and by the private railway that ran through the hills. The starting layer is the hills. This town is on the Hiki hills, north of the Musashino, and was long a post where a market stood — a place where people and goods gathered. In the Kamakura era, its name is handed down in this land as a place tied to a powerful clan that supported the shogunate. The market post on the hills was this town’s old center.

Upon this market post, an early-modern jinya overlapped. Around the late Edo era, a domain of Joshu placed a jinya on these hills of Musashi and made it a base for governing the surrounding territory. The jinya ended its role within just a few years with the abolition of the domains, but it well mirrors the character of the hill post as a center that bundled the surrounding lands. Through these hills, a modern private railway ran. A private railway bound for the city center ran through the hills, and when an interchange of an expressway was later placed, this town became a hill city where people who commute to the city center live. The Hiki hills of Musashi, the market post and the jinya, the tie to a Kamakura clan, and the private railway through the hills — this town’s form stands upon the history of the market post and jinya that the hills north of the Musashino held.

What characterizes Higashimatsuyama-shi is that, while bearing the old history of the market post and the jinya, it holds its population around ninety thousand and advances its aging. From 92,929 in 2000 to 91,791 in 2020, it has moved nearly flat over twenty years. Behind this town’s holding around ninety thousand, while many regional cities lose population, can be read the fact that residences have spread across the hills — easy to commute from by the private railway bound for the city center, and where an expressway interchange too was placed.

On the other hand, the share aged 65 and over passed three in ten at 30.9% in 2020, rising by about eighteen points over twenty years. This can be read as the expression of how the households that moved in during the period when the private railway ran through and increased the population have all grown older together. The Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025, and the household-with-children share is 19.5% in 2020. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.80 is a level covering eight-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue, on the upper side of middling. The income of the many households commuting to the city center can be read as supporting the tax source above middling. A nearly flat population, aging past three in ten, finances above middling — the hill city of Musashi holds these three at once. Read by the single word “flat” alone, one overlooks the changing of the generations advancing on the hills.

Higashimatsuyama holds several functions on a single set of hills. One is the history handed down of being on the Hiki hills, north of the Musashino, as a market post where people and goods gathered, and as a land tied to a powerful clan of the Kamakura era. Another is the character it holds of where a domain of Joshu placed a jinya in the late Edo era and made it a base bundling the surrounding lands. And the landform of the hills north of the Musashino raised the market post, and later drew in the private railway bound for the city center and the expressway interchange.

From the market post on the hills, to the jinya, the tie to a Kamakura clan, and on to the private railway and expressway one commutes to the city center on — the landform of “the Hiki hills, north of the Musashino” raised the market post and called in the private railway and the expressway. Note, too, that a distinctive grilled dish — what is skewered is not chicken but pig head meat — was born in this land after the war and became a specialty, and is now known as a food that characterizes the town. The market post bundled the surroundings, the jinya bundled the territory, the private railway bundles the commuters — the role of the Hiki hills, to bundle and become the center, has repeated north of the Musashino, swapping the bundled object among market, territory and resident.