Konosu-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about a hundred and seventeen thousand (116,828 in 2020). To read this city’s population, one must take the merger into account. In 2005 Konosu-shi added two neighboring towns and greatly widened its municipal area. Before the merger, the old Konosu-shi’s population in 2000 was 84,100; across the merger, 2005 was 119,594. From there, through 119,639 in 2010 and 118,072 in 2015 to 116,828 in 2020, it has gently fallen since the merger. The step in population between 2000 and 2005 in this article mirrors the widening of the municipal area through this merger.

Looking inside the figures, the form of a town matured in the very midst of the plain appears. The share aged 65 and over rose by about eighteen points over twenty years, from 12.4% (2000) to 30.0% (2020), reaching three in ten. The household-with-children share is 20.7% (2020), and the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.65 in fiscal 2023 — a level covering about two-thirds of expenditure with its own tax revenue, middling. The figure of the home of the highway post town, gently losing population in the post-merger municipal area while advancing its aging, appears in the numbers. Why it took this form cannot be read without going back over the history of the highway post town and dolls.

This town’s skeleton is set by the highway post town running through the very midst of the plain, and by the home of hina-doll making that took root in that land. The starting layer is the highway post town. In the Edo era, a great highway joining the capital and the north ran through this town, and it bustled as the seventh post town counting from the starting point in Edo. To this post town, where people and goods came and went in the very midst of the plain, commerce gathered, and the town flourished.

Upon this post town, the home of dolls overlapped. In this town, hina dolls have been made since the Edo era, and that history is handed down as reaching some four hundred years. Shops dealing in and making dolls lined the highway, and this town grew to be counted among the renowned hina markets of the Kanto. Records remain that around the Meiji era the number of doll-making shops and craftsmen greatly increased. The chain can be read that the bustle as a highway post town became the soil for dealing in dolls, and the home of dolls grew until it bore the town’s name. The path by which it became a city mirrors this town too. This land became a city in the 1950s, and in 2005 added two neighboring towns and greatly widened its municipal area. The Nakasendo post town, four hundred years of hina dolls, the hina market of the Kanto, and the municipal area widened by merger — this town’s form stands upon the history of the post town and dolls that the highway post town in the very midst of the plain held.

What characterizes Konosu-shi is that, while bearing the history of the highway post town and the home of dolls, it gently loses population in the post-merger municipal area and advances its aging. From 119,594 in 2005, across the merger, to 116,828 in 2020, it fell by about three thousand over fifteen years. Even in this town, which gathered people in the very midst of the plain as a highway post town and as a home of dolls, a part of the young generation can be read as having moved to the larger neighboring metropolitan sphere, and the town’s overall age has risen. That the share aged 65 and over rose by about eighteen points over twenty years, from 12.4% (2000) to 30.0% (2020), reaching three in ten, is its expression.

On the other hand, the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The household-with-children share is held at 20.7% in 2020, for a plain city losing population. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.65 is a level covering about two-thirds of expenditure with its own tax revenue, middling. The income of the households living in the very midst of the plain can be read as supporting the tax source at a middling level. A population gently declining after the merger, aging that has reached three in ten, middling finances — the town of the highway post town and the home of dolls shows these three at once. Only by laying the three side by side does the outline of a town quietly growing old in the very midst of the plain come into grasp.

Konosu holds several functions in the very midst of the plain. One is the highway post town running through the plain, holding the history of having bustled as the seventh post town from the starting point in Edo. Another is the character it holds, where hina-doll making continuing some four hundred years took root with that post town’s bustle as its soil, and it became a home of dolls counted among the renowned hina markets of the Kanto. And the landform of the very midst of the Kanto plain set the highway post town, and raised the home of dolls upon that post town’s bustle.

From the highway post town running through the plain, to four hundred years of hina dolls, the hina market of the Kanto, and the municipal area widened by merger — the landform of “the very midst of the Kanto plain” called in the highway post town and raised the home of dolls. At this position in the central part of Saitama Prefecture, the highway post town and the home of dolls overlap to make today’s outline of Konosu.