Toda-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 141,000 (140,899 in 2020). This city’s population owes not to a step from a large merger but to a clear, continuous rise of about thirty thousand over twenty years — from 108,039 in 2000 to 116,696 in 2005, 123,079 in 2010, 136,150 in 2015, and 140,899 in 2020. It is an upward curve in which the town on the shore of the Arakawa steadily piled up its population.

Looking inside, it is markedly young. The share aged 65 and over was 16.4% in 2020, particularly low even among the nation’s cities. The household-with-children share is high at 22.9%, and births per thousand population are on the higher side at 8.6. The Childcare Waitlist was zero in 2024 and 18 in 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 1.19 in fiscal 2023, exceeding one — meaning the stamina to cover expenditure with its own tax revenue, with a surplus besides. A town of the ferry and the rowing course, increasing its population while holding both youth and fiscal margin at once, appears in the numbers. Why it took this form cannot be read without going back over the history of the Arakawa and the ferry.

Toda’s skeleton is set by the geography of the great river that is the Arakawa and the boundary with Tokyo. In the Edo era, the Nakasendo joining Itabashi-juku and Warabi-juku ran through this land. But the Toda River flowing between the two post towns — today’s Arakawa — had no bridge, and people and goods crossed to the far bank by ferry boats called the “Toda ferry.” The ferry had thirteen boats, and, serving not only to carry people but as a place for unloading cargo, the riverside village bustled. As a strategic point for crossing a bridgeless river, this town is inscribed in the history of the highway. The ferry continued until the wooden Toda Bridge was built in 1875.

That same riverbank changed in the modern era into a channel for competition. On the floodplain of the Arakawa, a straight channel for rowing was dug. This course was readied for the phantom Tokyo Games scheduled for 1940 but never held, and later, through widening and improvement, became the venue for rowing at the 1964 Tokyo Games. It is the Toda Rowing Course. This land, which began at the ferry of a bridgeless river, is still known as “the town of rowing.”

And in the present day, the position of bordering Tokyo gave this town one more character. Meeting Tokyo across the single Arakawa, and close to the city center by rail, this location drew in many households from the postwar era through the Heisei era. From a strategic ferry point, to a town holding a channel for competition, to a residential area adjoining Tokyo — this town’s form stands upon the history that the river called the Arakawa set down.

What characterizes Toda-shi is that, in an age when population decline has become a matter of course, it has kept increasing its population over twenty years. About thirty thousand were added over twenty years, and the share aged 65 and over stays at a level — 16.4% — particularly low even nationally. It can be read as the expression of a location meeting Tokyo across the single Arakawa and close to the city center by rail, continually drawing in young households in the prime of working age. The high household-with-children share of 22.9% and the high births are the flip side of that inflow.

That vitality shows strongly in the fiscal figures. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 1.19 exceeds one — a level that covers expenditure with its own tax revenue, with a surplus besides. A city that can do without the allocation tax is rare nationally, and the concentration of enterprises together with the many young taxpayers can be read as generating this thickness of tax source. The Childcare Waitlist, against ever-growing demand, came to 18 in 2025, with years now appearing in which it cannot be held at zero — a challenge particular to a town of population growth. The population increases, the aging is particularly shallow, and the fiscal stamina exceeds one. These three are not separate matters: a single flow — young households pouring in — leaves a mark in the same direction on population, on age, and on tax revenue.

Toda, as a town meeting Tokyo across the Arakawa, holds several functions of its own. One is the history of the Toda ferry of the Nakasendo, with its origin as a strategic highway point for crossing the bridgeless Arakawa. Another is the Toda Rowing Course dug on the floodplain of the Arakawa, keeping the memory of “the town of rowing” as a venue for rowing at the Tokyo Games. And the location of meeting Tokyo across the single Arakawa gives this town the face of a residential area close to the city center.

Toda is a town where a river ferry turned into a residential area. From a strategic ferry point of the Nakasendo, to a town holding a channel for competition, to a residential area adjoining Tokyo — the geography of “meeting Tokyo across the Arakawa” has called in the ferry, the rowing course, and the residential area. On the riverbank that once had no bridge, the memory of the ferry, the channel for competition, and an ever-growing population now coexist. The single river called the Arakawa has called in wholly different roles to this shore, era by era.