Abiko-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 130,000 (130,510 in 2020). Its trend has a mountain of rising then falling. From 127,733 in 2000, it rose to 131,205 in 2005 and 134,017 in 2010, and then declined gently to 131,606 in 2015 and 130,510 in 2020. It is a curve that, taking around 2010 as its peak, turned from increase to decrease.

Looking inside, the figure of a mature residential city near Tokyo appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 13.8% in 2000 to 30.6% in 2020, more than doubling over twenty years, past three in ten. It is a gradient mirroring how the generation of households commuting to Tokyo, who moved in all at once, is entering old age together. The household-with-children share is 19.6% in 2020, and the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.74 in fiscal 2023, a level comparatively on the higher side for a residential city, covering about seven-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue. The figure of the town of Lake Teganuma — increasing its population, then gently reducing it and deepening its aging, while holding its fiscal stamina comparatively high — shows in the numbers. Why it took this form cannot be read without going back over the history of Lake Teganuma and the Joban Line.

Abiko’s skeleton is set by the waterside scenery of Lake Teganuma and by the geography of being near Tokyo. The old layer is the period when men of letters gathered. In 1914, beginning with a certain thinker moving to the shore of Lake Teganuma, the next year, 1915, the writer Shiga Naoya, and the year after, the writer Mushanokoji Saneatsu, came to live one after another on this lakeshore. This land, where the men of letters called the Shirakaba school gathered, became one hub of modern Japanese literature and thought. Because the scenery of Lake Teganuma resembled the landform of an old capital — rich in greenery, near the sea, and full of slopes — Abiko was sometimes called “the Kamakura of the north.”

Behind the men of letters being called to this land was the railway. When a railway opened in 1896 and Tokyo was joined in a little over an hour, wealthy people came to move to this land or build villas. The lakeshore scenery and the closeness to Tokyo gave this town the character of a villa district. In time, in the period of high economic growth, that location of being a railway corridor shifted the town’s character to a residential city for households commuting to Tokyo. From a lakeshore where men of letters gathered, to a residential city the railway called in — this town’s form stands upon the history that the geography of the waterside of Lake Teganuma and the closeness to Tokyo has held.

What characterizes Abiko-shi is that, as a residential city raised from a villa district, it increased its population and then turned to decrease, with around 2010 as its peak. After rising from 127,733 in 2000 to 134,017 in 2010, it fell to 130,510 in 2020. A town that gathered people as a commuting zone to Tokyo can be read as having crossed the mountain of population and entered the phase of maturity, as the inflow of newly moving-in households settles and the aging of the already-resident households advances. That the share aged 65 and over more than doubled over twenty years, past three in ten, is the expression of the generation of households commuting to Tokyo, who moved in all at once, entering old age together.

On the other hand, the fiscal stamina holds comparatively high. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.74 is a level that covers about seven-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue, comparatively on the higher side for a residential city. The income of households commuting to Tokyo can be read as having supported the town’s tax source in the form of resident tax. The Childcare Waitlist too was zero in both 2024 and 2025, and the receptacle for demand is held. The population gently declining past the mountain, the aging past three in ten, the fiscal stamina comparatively high. The mountain of population rising then falling, the aging of the generation that entered all at once, and the tax source nonetheless held — these three figures can be read as the time-lagged expressions of a single event: that households commuting to Tokyo gathered in one period.

Abiko, as a town opening on the waterside of Lake Teganuma and the closeness to Tokyo, holds several functions of its own. One is its history as the lakeshore of Lake Teganuma where the men of letters of the Shirakaba school moved one after another, with an old layer as one hub of modern Japanese literature and thought. Another is the lakeshore scenery called “the Kamakura of the north,” keeping its character of greenery and waterside. And the railway’s opening in 1896 gives this town its own thread — from a villa district to a residential city near Tokyo.

Abiko is a town where a lakeshore the men of letters gathered at and residential land the railway called in overlap. From a villa district where men of letters gathered, to a railway-corridor residential city, and on to a town heading toward maturity — the geography of “the waterside of Lake Teganuma being near Tokyo” called in men of letters and villas, and in time called in a residential city. On the shore of Lake Teganuma, the scenery the Shirakaba school found and the residential land of postwar commuting households overlap upon the same waterside. This town, where commuter trains run through a lakeshore thick with greenery, stands upon scenery where the memory of literature and the daily commute coexist.