Akishima-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 114,000 (113,949 in 2020). Its trend is a gentle increase. From 106,532 in 2000, through 110,143 in 2005, 112,297 in 2010, 111,539 in 2015, and on to 113,949 in 2020, it rose by more than seven thousand over twenty years.

Looking inside, the figure of a residential city opening on the Tama terrace appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 14.8% in 2000 to 26.3% in 2020, but among many regional cities that approach four in ten, it does not reach three in ten and keeps a comparative youthfulness. The household-with-children share is 19.3% in 2020, and the Childcare Waitlist was 16 in 2024 and 3 in 2025 — it has fallen in recent years but remains. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.97 in fiscal 2023, a high level covering nearly all of expenditure with its own tax revenue. The figure of a town watered by deep groundwater, increasing its population gently while keeping a comparative youthfulness, shows in the numbers. Why a town on this Tama terrace can keep such youthfulness does not come into view without going back over the place name that joined two names, and the history of water flowing deep underground.

This town’s skeleton is set by a place name joining the names of two administrative districts, by the history of water watered from deep groundwater, and by modern factories. The opening layer is the place name. In the 1950s, two administrative districts that lay on this land — one town and one village — joined into one and became a city. The new town’s name was given as a compound place name, taking one character from the town’s name and one from the village’s name and joining them. The very making — two places becoming one — is inscribed in the town’s name.

Upon this compound place name, water, a whale, and factories were layered. This town’s tap water is supplied solely by groundwater flowing deep — in a layer more than seventy meters below the surface — and it is said to be the only municipality in the metropolis to make this its sole water source. From the bed of the Tama River running through the town, in the 1950s, a near-complete whale fossil about two million years old was dug out. Because it was a species different from the present whale, the fossil is named after the town. In the modern era, munitions plants such as an aircraft factory were placed in this town, and the land of spreading mulberry fields turned into a land of factories. The course of becoming a city mirrors this town. This land became a city in the 1950s by the merger of two administrative districts. A place name joining two names, the deep groundwater, the whale fossil of the riverbed, and the munitions plants — this town’s form stands upon the history of a compound name and water that the terrace on the north bank of the Tama River has held.

What characterizes Akishima-shi is that, while bearing the history of a town watered by deep groundwater, it has increased its population gently and keeps a comparative youthfulness. From 106,532 in 2000 to 113,949 in 2020, more than seven thousand were gained over twenty years. On the Tama terrace, a location easy to commute to the city center from, the land of modern factories shifted into housing and new commerce, and households raising children stayed in a certain measure — this can be read as the support that gently increased the population. That the share aged 65 and over is 26.3% in 2020, not reaching three in ten and keeping a comparative youthfulness, is also its expression.

On the other hand, the Childcare Waitlist was 16 in 2024 and 3 in 2025 — it has fallen in recent years but remains. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.97 is a level that covers nearly all of expenditure with its own tax revenue, and it is high. The income of the many households living on the terrace, and the industry grown on the land of modern factories, can be read as supporting the tax source highly. The population rises gently, the aging does not reach three in ten, and the fiscal stamina is on the high side. These numbers move slowly in the same direction, upon a history where the deep water underground supports living and the land of factories shifts into housing.

Akishima, as a town opening on the terrace on the north bank of the Tama River, holds several functions of its own. One is that it has a compound place name joining the names of one town and one village, holding a history that inscribes its making in its name. Another is its character of taking, as its water source, solely the groundwater of a layer more than seventy meters below the surface — the only municipality in the metropolis to do so. And the landform of the terrace on the north bank of the Tama River, together with the deep groundwater flowing beneath it, raised a water-watered residential city on this land.

Akishima is a town where a name joining two names is watered by deep groundwater. From a place name joining one town and one village, to the deep groundwater, the whale fossil of the riverbed, and the site of the munitions plants — the geography of “the terrace on the north bank of the Tama River,” together with the deep groundwater beneath it, made a town with a compound name into a water-watered residential city. Turn the tap, and water comes that has flowed from a layer deeper than seventy meters underground — that, as the only municipality in the metropolis to sustain living on that water alone, is the feel of the footing that stands beside this town’s name as another part of its make-up.