Noda-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 153,000 (152,638 in 2020). This city’s population has a step from a merger. Noda merged with Sekiyado town in 2003 to form its present municipal area. In 2000, before the merger, it was 119,922 for the former Noda alone; after the merger, in 2005, it became 151,240 with Sekiyado town added, and from there it moved roughly flat — 155,491 in 2010, 153,583 in 2015, and 152,638 in 2020.

Looking inside, the figure of a Chiba suburban city appears. The share aged 65 and over exceeds three in ten at 30.8% in 2020. The household-with-children share is 19.8%, and the Childcare Waitlist has been zero in recent years. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.80 in fiscal 2023, a high level for a regional city, covering about eight-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue. The population roughly flat, the aging past three in ten, the fiscal stamina on the higher side — for a city of 150,000 these are stable figures, but where that stability comes from does not come into view without going back to the single industry that has supported the town.

Noda’s skeleton is set by the geography of river transport that is the Tone River, the Edo River, and the Tone Canal. In the Edo era, the eastern side along the Tone River was a producing region of soybeans and wheat, and downstream of the Edo River flowing to the west lay the salt fields of Gyotoku. This land, where the raw materials and salt needed for soy-sauce making were carried in by river transport, was well suited to brewing. The locational advantage, in economic geography, of raw materials and transport routes gathering at one point was here.

Upon that condition, the town of soy sauce was built. Noda was counted among the five great production centers of soy sauce, alongside Choshi and others. And in 1917, eight leading brewing houses such as the Mogi and Takanashi families joined together to found “Noda Shoyu Co., Ltd.” This was the predecessor of the later Kikkoman, and Noda developed as a company town with this single company at its core. It is still a major producing region turning out about a third of the nation’s soy sauce, and the scent of soy sauce drifts through the town.

And in the present day, this town gained one more history. In 2003, Noda merged with Sekiyado town to the north. Sekiyado lies where the Tone River and the Edo River part, and it flourished as a strategic point of river transport. Beginning from a plateau equipped with the conditions for soy-sauce brewing, becoming a company town as eight houses merged into one, and merging with a strategic point of river transport — this town’s form stands upon the history of soy sauce and river transport.

What characterizes Noda-shi is that, while being a company town with a single industry at its core, it has held its population roughly flat even after the merger. From 2005 after the merger to 2020, the population moved nearly flat. It can be read as the expression of the manufacturing centered on soy-sauce brewing still giving a place to work, supporting the population together with the railway toward Tokyo. That the share aged 65 and over exceeds three in ten is also the flip side of the suburban residential areas entering a mature phase.

The thickness of that industry appears in the fiscal figures too. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.80 is a level that covers about eight-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue, on the higher side for a regional city. The manufacturing of a major soy-sauce production center can be read as giving thickness to the tax source. The Childcare Waitlist too has moved at zero in recent years. The population flat, the aging past three in ten, the fiscal stamina on the higher side. It looks like a 150,000 city whose total does not move, but inside it, while manufacturing keeps supporting the town, the generation that entered the residential areas is aging together.

Noda, as a town opened on a plateau ringed by three rivers, holds several functions of its own. One is the geography of river transport that is the Tone River, the Edo River, and the Tone Canal, with its origin as a place equipped with the conditions for soy-sauce brewing, where soybeans, wheat, and salt met. Another is its character as a company town with a single company born of the merger of eight houses at its core, keeping the memory of a major production center turning out about a third of the nation’s soy sauce. And Sekiyado, merged in 2003, adds to this town the history of a strategic point of river transport.

Noda is a company town that has walked alongside soy sauce. From a plateau equipped with the conditions for soy-sauce brewing, to a company town where eight houses merged into one, to a city merged with a strategic point of river transport — the geography of “ringed by three rivers, with raw materials and salt gathering by river transport” has kept calling in soy-sauce brewing. In the Edo era, the river transport carried the soybeans, wheat, and salt; in the Taisho era, a single company stood upon that; and now it produces a third of the nation’s soy sauce. Because the locational advantage did not change, a single industry has stayed in this town for more than a hundred years.