Shibata-shi

In the 2020 Population Census the population is 94,927. What I want to note first is that the increase of about twenty-four thousand, from 80,734 in 2000 to 104,634 in 2005, is not the result of a natural increase in people. It owes to the absorption of Toyoura Town in 2003 and of Shiunji Town and Kajikawa Village in 2005, and the effect of the mergers appears in the 2005 figure. The old Shibata City was about 81,000; by absorbing the surrounding towns and villages both the municipal area and the population widened.

On that basis, looking at the post-merger content, from 104,634 in 2005 to 94,927 in 2020 it fell by about ten thousand over fifteen years. Those under 15 fell by about 3,100, from 14,201 in the post-merger 2005 to 11,067 in 2020. The aging rate rose from 20.8% in 2000 to 32.3% in 2020, passing three in ten. Households with children make up 22.1%, the Childcare Waitlist has been zero in recent years, and the Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.48 in fiscal 2023. The numbers show an Echigo Plain castle town shrinking within a municipal area widened by merger and growing older. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without tracing the history of the Mizoguchi family’s castle town.

What set Shibata down was a single castle built in the north of the Echigo Plain. Mizoguchi Hidekatsu, a retainer of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, began building Shibata Castle on this land in 1598. This is an unusual castle, built over a long span of some fifty years until its completion in the time of the third lord, Nobunao. Thereafter, until the Meiji Restoration, twelve generations of the Mizoguchi clan governed this Shibata as a castle town. The town walked as a comparatively prosperous castle seat of Echigo.

Those castle ruins took on another role upon entering the modern era. Most of the site of the castle precincts became, from the Meiji era until the Japanese army was dissolved, a site where the army was placed. The center of the castle town turned into a military site. After the war, that site was inherited as the Shibata garrison of the Ground Self-Defense Force, and it continues still as a land use of this place. The core of the castle town has been carried on as a military site.

And the castle itself was partly restored upon entering the Heisei era. In 2004 the three-story turret and the Tatsumi turret were restored, and a part of the bygone form returned to the scenery of the castle town. The present municipal area was shaped by the absorption of Toyoura Town in 2003 and of Shiunji Town and Kajikawa Village in 2005. Beginning with the castle town Mizoguchi Hidekatsu took fifty years to build, the castle ruins becoming a military site, the castle restored, and the municipal area widened by merger — the history of the Mizoguchi family’s castle town lies at the foundation of today’s Shibata.

What characterizes Shibata-shi is that, within a municipal area widened by merger, children are falling faster than the total population. While the total population fell by a little under ten percent in the fifteen years since the merger, those under 15 fell by more than twenty percent. Located in the north of the Echigo Plain, it takes the shape common to a region backed by rice, where an outflow of the younger generation and a thinning of births thin the layer of children first. The aging rate too has passed three in ten.

The figures for living infrastructure are inscribed with the two mergers. The number of elementary schools was sixteen in 2003 before the mergers, rose to twenty-six in 2005 after the two absorptions, binding the school networks of the joined towns and villages, then advanced through consolidation as the number of children declined, falling to fifteen in 2023. A school network that had widened has been folded up greatly to match the number of children. The Childcare Waitlist has held at zero in recent years. The total population falls, children fall faster, aging passes three in ten, and the school network has been folded from twenty-six to fifteen — that the speed of shrinking differs by layer is the figure of post-merger Shibata. Watch only the decline of the total population and the speed at which children are dropping out is missed.

Shibata holds several functions of its own. One is its history as a castle town governed by twelve generations of the Mizoguchi clan, where the early-modern castle seat set down in the north of the Echigo Plain carries on the outline of today’s urban district. Another is its character of continuity of land use: those castle ruins became a military site in the modern era and, after the war, were carried on to yet another use. And its position as the center of the north of the Echigo Plain gives this town the role of a hub for a region backed by a rice-producing land.

Shibata is an Echigo castle town whose castle ruins carried on their role. From the castle town Mizoguchi Hidekatsu took fifty years to build, to the castle ruins that became a military site, to the restored castle, and to the Echigo Plain city widened by merger — a history of “a castle set down in the north of the Echigo Plain remaining the core of the castle town” called forth the continuity of the castle town and of land use. A castle stood, its ruins carried on their role to the army and then to the Self-Defense Force, and in time it joined the surrounding towns and villages — in the north of the Echigo Plain, the use of the land alone has been carried on without a break.