Tomi-shi

In the most recent Population Census the population is about 30,000 (30,122 in 2020). From 31,271 in 2005 just after the merger, through 30,696 in 2010 and 30,107 in 2015, it reached 30,122 in 2020 — a fall of only about a thousand over fifteen years, holding at around thirty thousand. In the most recent five years it has even risen slightly.

Look into the makeup and the figure of a hill of fruit originating in a highway post and a silkworm-seed village appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 23.0% in 2005 to 31.0% in 2020 — up about eight points over fifteen years, past three in ten. Households with children were 23.2% in 2020, high among inland cities. The childcare waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.48 in FY2023 — a level where its own tax revenue does not reach half of expenditure. The numbers show a city of fruit and wine beginning with a highway post and a silkworm-seed village, holding its population at around thirty thousand while raising the town’s age. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back to the history of the post, the silkworms and the fruit.

This city’s skeleton is set by its starting point as a post of the Hokkoku Kaido, by the silkworm-seed village that post turned into, by the fruit of a sunny, dry hill, and by a blended city name made by binding two municipalities together one character each. The opening layer is the highway post. At the start of the Edo era, on the Hokkoku Kaido opened as a road to carry the gold of Sado to Edo and as a road on which daimyo processions passed, the post of this land prospered. But when the age of the railway came, the post lost its highway role. Having lost its role, the post changed its form into a village dealing in silkworm seed, and a streetscape where Edo-period inn architecture and Meiji-period silkworm-rearing houses stand together remained. The highway post, and the silkworm-seed village it turned into, were this city’s old foundation.

Upon that foundation, the fruit of the modern era and after was laid. This hill, long in sunshine and light in rain, has the soil to ripen walnuts, and is now Japan’s foremost walnut village. Further, on the slopes where mulberry had once been planted, grapes were planted, and it became a hill where several small wineries that make fruit wine gathered. And in the Heisei era two towns and a village merged, and a new city name was made by taking one character each from their names. The post of the Hokkoku Kaido, the silkworm-seed village, the hill of walnuts and wine, and the blended city name — this city’s shape stands upon a history in which a highway post and a silkworm-seed village changed their form, on a sunny hill, into a village of fruit and wine.

What characterizes Tomi is that, while carrying a history of a highway post and a silkworm-seed village, it has held its population at around thirty thousand. From 31,271 in 2005 just after the merger to 30,122 in 2020, the fall stayed at about a thousand over fifteen years, and in the most recent five years it has even risen slightly. While many cities of northern Shinano and the Ina valley reduce their populations by ten or twenty percent, that it could hold nearly level can be read as because this hill did not lean on a single livelihood but reworked its mulberry-field slopes into a new village of fruit such as walnuts and wine. That the old silkworm-seed village changed its form into a hill of fruit and wine kept its power to hold people.

But within that level line, the town’s age is rising. The share aged 65 and over was 31.0% in 2020, past three in ten. On the other hand, households with children were 23.2% in 2020, high among inland cities, and the childcare waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.48 is a level where its own tax revenue does not reach half of expenditure, showing the size of its reliance on the local allocation tax. The city of fruit and wine now holds its population at around thirty thousand while raising the town’s age. The population is nearly flat, aging is past three in ten, and fiscal stamina does not reach half. From highway post to silkworm-seed village, from mulberry field to vineyard — that it reread the same sunny hill age by age holds Tomi’s numbers at around thirty thousand.

The history Tomi holds is not one thing. There is the history in which the post of the Hokkoku Kaido, through which the gold of Sado and the processions of daimyo passed, lost its role in the age of the railway, then changed its form into a village dealing in silkworm seed, leaving a streetscape where Edo-period inn architecture and Meiji-period silkworm-rearing houses stand together. There is the character by which a dry hill, long in sunshine and light in rain, is now Japan’s foremost walnut village, and its mulberry-field slopes were reworked into a hill of wine. And it holds a blended city name taking one character each from two towns and a village. The sunny, dry hill on the left bank of the Chikuma River gave this city the soil to ripen mulberry, walnuts and grapes alike.

Tomi is a city where a highway post and a silkworm-seed village became a village of fruit on a sunny hill. From the post of the Hokkoku Kaido, to the silkworm-seed village, to the hill of walnuts and wine, to the blended city name — the sunny, dry hill on the left bank of the Chikuma River raised the highway post and the silkworm village, and was reworked, just as it was, into a village of fruit and wine. The same single slope was once planted with mulberry and is now planted with grapes. The soil did not change; people only changed how they read it, age by age.