Sanjo-shi

In the 2020 Population Census the population is 94,642. What I want to note first is that the jump of more than twenty thousand, from 84,447 in 2000 to 104,749 in 2005, is not the result of a natural increase in people. It owes to the 2005 new merger of the old Sanjo City with one town and one village, and the step in the figures reflects that merger.

On that basis, looking at the post-merger content, from 104,749 in 2005 to 94,642 in 2020 it fell by more than ten thousand over fifteen years. Those under 15 thinned by more than four thousand, from 14,622 in 2005 to 10,607 in 2020. The share aged 65 and over rose from 19.7% in 2000 to 33.0% in 2020, passing three in ten. Households with children make up 22.7% (2020), the Childcare Waitlist has been zero in recent years, and the Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.54 in fiscal 2023. The numbers show a city of making, widened by merger, quietly growing older. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without tracing the history of the smith.

Sanjo’s skeleton was set by the nail craftsmen a single magistrate summoned. Around 1625, Otani Seibei, who served as magistrate and resided in Sanjo, summoned nail-forging smiths from Edo as a means of saving the farmers who suffered again and again from the floods of the Shinano River. And he guided and encouraged a way for farming households to make Japanese nails as their off-season side-work. Side-work nail-making, begun as a measure against the land’s affliction of flooding, was this town’s starting point.

That side-work smithing in time grew into a full-time industry. From the Kanbun era onward (after 1661), as new methods for saws and hatchets were transmitted from the direction of Aizu, the products made spread from nails to sickles, saws, and kitchen knives, and craftsmen who made smithing their sole trade, rather than a side-work, began to appear. The seed sown as a farmer’s winter side-work struck root as a city making hardware.

What supported this smith’s craft of making was the boat transport of the Shinano River system. Already in the medieval era, with the river’s water transport and the rich resources of the forests at its back, casters who made pots, kettles, and temple bells opened their guild, regular markets stood, and this district flourished as the center of Kanbara County. The goods the river carried supported both the making and the trade. The shape of the present municipal area was decided by the Heisei-era merger. In 2005 the old Sanjo City merged anew with Sakae Town and Shitada Village to become the present municipal area, spread across the basin of the Shinano River. Beginning as flood-countering side-work smithing, growing as a city of hardware, and widened by merger — this town’s shape stands upon the history of smithing and river transport.

What characterizes Sanjo-shi is that, after the merger widened the municipal area, the population has steadily fallen and aging has passed three in ten. In the fifteen years since the merger the total population fell by more than ten thousand, and those under 15 thinned by more than four thousand. While holding the industrial base of hardware-making, it takes the shape common to mature regional cities, where both a thinning of births and an outflow of the younger generation are at work.

The figures for living infrastructure mirror both the merger and maturity. The number of elementary schools rose from fifteen to twenty-four through the 2005 merger, binding the school networks of the joined towns and villages. It then fell in steps as the number of children declined, holding around nineteen in recent years. Schools that increased all at once are quietly falling along with the decline of children. The Childcare Waitlist has held at zero in recent years, but this carries strongly the aspect of supply and demand balancing as the number of children thins. The town that began as flood-countering side-work smithing and grew as a city of hardware has now entered a mature phase with little inflow. The total population falls, children thin, aging passes three in ten — the present of a city of making, where these three run at once, lies on the far side of the merger step. Mistake the 2005 surge for an inflow of people and the town’s true shape is misread whole.

Sanjo holds several functions of its own. One is its character as a place of hardware-making, begun with Japanese nails and spread to sickles, saws, and kitchen knives; the smithing sown as a farmer’s side-work is rooted in this town still, as a producing district of blades and tools. Another is the history of boat transport on the Shinano River system, where the goods the river carried have supported the making and the trade of this district since the medieval era. And the municipal area bound by the 2005 merger holds, within a single city, both the urban district of making and the old towns and villages of the basin.

Sanjo is a city of hardware born from a measure against the floods of the river. From flood-countering side-work smithing, to full-time hardware-making, to trade supported by the river’s boat transport, and to a municipal area widened by merger — a single event, the summoning of nail craftsmen to save farmers suffering from the floods of the river, called forth the smithing and the making and became the foundation of today’s city of hardware. Upon the natural landform of the Shinano River and its tributaries, the flooding and the smithing summoned as a measure against it were layered, and today’s city of hardware was made. A measure against the river’s affliction has, four hundred years on, struck root as a producing district of blades and tools — that is the core of how Sanjo came to be.