Fukaya-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about a hundred and forty-one thousand (141,268 in 2020). To read this city’s population, one must take the merger into account. In 2006 Fukaya-shi merged anew with three neighboring towns to become the present Fukaya-shi. Before the merger, the old Fukaya-shi’s population in 2005 was 103,529; across the merger, 2010 was 144,618. From there, through 143,811 in 2015 to 141,268 in 2020, it has gently fallen 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 15.0% (2000) to 28.9% (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 22.1% (2020), and the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.71 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 town of brick that supported the modern era, 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 brick.

This town’s skeleton is set by a post town of the highway joining Edo and Kyoto, by the modern brick factory built in the Meiji era, and by the entrepreneur who started that factory. 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 bustled as its post town. The people and goods coming and going on the highway gathered bustle in this land, and the ever-burning stone lantern built at the eastern edge of the post town conveys the traces of that post town to this day.

Upon this post town, modern brick overlapped. In the Meiji era, under the guidance of an engineer invited from Germany, the first factory in Japan to fire brick by machine power was built in this town. The red brick of this factory, which began operation in the latter half of the 1880s, was laid into the buildings standing at the center of Tokyo and into the bridges of the railways, and supported the streetscape of the nation’s modern era. The one who started this factory was an entrepreneur born in this town who founded many companies in modern Japan. The brick factory ended its role and closed at the end of the modern era, but a part of its facilities remains even now and is preserved by the city. The path by which it became a city mirrors this town too. This land walked as a city centered on the highway post town, and in 2006 merged anew with three neighboring towns and widened its municipal area. On this plain near the Tone River, negi and other agriculture is still worked. The highway post town, Japan’s first machine brickworks, an entrepreneur who built the modern era, and the plain of negi — this town’s form stands upon the history of the post town and brick that the plain near the Tone River held.

What characterizes Fukaya-shi is that, while bearing the history of the highway post town and modern brick, it nearly holds the population of the post-merger municipal area and keeps comparative youth. From 144,618 in 2010, across the merger, to 141,268 in 2020, it fell by about three thousand over ten years, but still holds about a hundred and forty thousand. The brick factory ended its role, but in addition to the central built-up area set by the highway post town, the agriculture of the plain near the Tone River and a life of commuting to the neighborhood hold together, 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 28.9% 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 0.71 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 agriculture of the plain, and the income of residents who work nearby 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 brick that supported the modern era holds these three at once. Leaning on any single figure to read, one misreads the town’s footing.

Fukaya holds several functions on a single plain. One holds the old layer of having bustled as a post town of the highway joining Edo and Kyoto, keeping the ever-burning stone lantern that is the trace of the post town. Another holds the history that overlapped upon the post town — the first machine brickworks in Japan, built in the Meiji era, and the entrepreneur who built the modern era who started that factory. And the landform of a plain near the Tone River set the highway post town and produced the soil that became the raw material of brick.

From the highway post town, to Japan’s first machine brickworks, the entrepreneur who built the modern era, and the plain of negi — the condition “opening onto a plain near the Tone River, through which a highway joining Edo and Kyoto ran” called in the post town and called in the brick factory. The ever-burning lantern of the post town, the walls of brick, and the negi fields line up on the same plain near the Tone River. Upon the memory of the bustle the highway carried, an industry that fired brick by machine stood, and after that industry withdrew, agriculture remained — Fukaya is a plain that has handed down its roles in that way.