Kokubunji-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 129,000 (129,242 in 2020). This city’s population, not by a step from a great merger but from 111,404 in 2000, through 117,604 in 2005, 120,650 in 2010, 122,742 in 2015, and on to 129,242 in 2020, kept increasing steadily by about eighteen thousand over twenty years. It is a rising curve of a town on the Musashino plateau piling up its population.

Looking inside, the youthfulness and stamina of a city near Tokyo appear. The share aged 65 and over is 21.0% in 2020, staying at about two in ten, and the household-with-children share is 17.8%. The Childcare Waitlist has fallen from 24 in 2024 to 9 in 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 1.03 in fiscal 2023, exceeding one — meaning it covers expenditure with its own tax revenue and still has a surplus. The figure of a town bearing the name of an ancient temple, increasing its population and at once keeping youthfulness and a fiscal surplus, shows in the numbers. Why a town on this plateau keeps rising so does not come into view without going back to the reason Musashi Kokubunji was placed, and to the water welling at the foot of the cliff line.

Kokubunji’s skeleton is set by the landform of the Musashino plateau and by the memory of an ancient national undertaking. In the Nara era, by the edict of Emperor Shomu, provincial temples (kokubunji) were placed province by province across the nation. The kokubunji of Musashi Province was built on this land. The site, where a temple complex once stood on a vast ground, is still the nationally designated historic site of the Musashi Kokubunji ruins, and the town’s name itself derives from this ancient temple. A single national undertaking left the town’s name lasting more than twelve hundred years later — a typical case, in historical geography, of a history inscribed in a place name.

Why was a temple placed on this land? One answer is water. Along the southern edge of the Musashino plateau runs, east to west, a step demarcating the plateau and the lowland — the Kokubunji cliff line — and from the foot of that cliff groundwater wells up. The Mashizu-no-ike spring group, gathering the cliff-foot springs, is selected among the Environment Ministry’s One Hundred Famous Waters. Blessed with clear water, this land was also a land that supported an ancient temple.

The small path along the cliff-foot clear stream has been called the “Otaka-no-michi” (the path of the falcon) from its having been a falconry hunting ground of the Owari Tokugawa house in the Edo era. The ancient temple, the cliff-line springs, the path of falconry — a single geographic condition, the edge of the Musashino plateau, layered several histories on this land across the ages. Beginning with an ancient temple, holding the famous water of the cliff line, and keeping the path of falconry — this town’s form stands upon the history the edge of the Musashino plateau set.

What characterizes Kokubunji-shi is that, in an era of population decline, it has kept increasing its population over twenty years. About eighteen thousand were gained over twenty years, and the share aged 65 and over stays at about two in ten, at 21.0%. Close to the city center by railways beginning with the Chuo Line, and with the environment of a residential area on the Musashino plateau, it can be read as having continuously drawn in working-age households. The household-with-children share of 17.8%, and the recent decrease of the waitlist, can be read as the movement of building receivers against that inflow.

That vitality shows strongly in the fiscal numbers. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 1.03 exceeds one, a level that covers expenditure with its own tax revenue and still has a surplus. A city that need not rely on the allocation tax is rare even nationwide, and the thickness of the taxes paid by residents commuting to the city center can be read as supporting that tax source. The Childcare Waitlist too fell from 24 in 2024 to 9 in 2025. The population increases, aging is shallow, and the fiscal stamina exceeds one. These three are not separate strokes of luck, but the showing, in each number, of a single flow — a plateau residential area close to the city center keeping on drawing in working-age households.

Kokubunji, as a town opening on the southern edge of the Musashino plateau, holds several functions of its own. One is its history as the land where the kokubunji of Musashi Province was placed, its origin being that the town’s name itself derives from an ancient national undertaking. Another is the Kokubunji cliff line demarcating the edge of the Musashino plateau and its springs, keeping the clear water selected among the One Hundred Famous Waters and the memory of the path of falconry. And its location close to the city center by the Chuo Line gives this town the face of a residential area on the plateau.

Kokubunji is a town holding an ancient temple and the water of the cliff line. From the land where the kokubunji of Musashi Province was placed, to a land of famous water holding the cliff-line springs, and to a residential area close to the city center — the geography of “opening on the southern edge of the Musashino plateau” called in an ancient temple, springs, and a residential area. Because clear water welled at the foot of the cliff line, the kokubunji was placed here more than twelve hundred years ago. That same spring-water land now draws in households commuting to the city center. A single condition — water — called the ancient temple and the modern residential area to the same edge of the cliff line.