Kitaaiki-mura

In the most recent Population Census the population is about 750 (752 in 2020). From 1,025 in 2000, through 942 in 2005, 842 in 2010 and 774 in 2015, it reached 752 in 2020 — falling below a thousand over twenty years, down to the seven hundreds. It is one of the least-populated villages among all the towns and villages of Nagano.

Look into the makeup and the figure of a small headwaters village in a mountain hollow appears. The share aged 65 and over rose once past four in ten from 37.7% in 2000, then came to 35.9% in 2020. That the recent figure fell once is more accurately read as the sway peculiar to a small village, where, because the population is extremely small, even a slight movement of a few households shifts the share greatly. The share of households with children was 16.7% in 2020. The childcare waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.14 in FY2023 — covering only the mid-teens percent of expenditure with its own tax revenue, unable to stand without the support of the state. The figure of a small headwaters village keeping the name of a warring-states lord, reducing its population to the seven hundreds, shows in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back to the history of the mountain, the river and the lord.

The mountain over 2,000 meters that rises above the village. The headwaters of the river that rises from that mountain. And the name of a warring-states lord. The shape of Kitaaiki is supported by these three. The starting layer is the mountain and the river. Above the village rises a mountain over 2,000 meters, and the river and its many tributaries that rise from that mountain descend the valley while creating many waterfalls, in time pouring into a great river. The village’s living has been carried on in the limited flat land along that river. The mountain of 2,000 meters and the river at its headwaters were the foundation of this village’s terrain.

The name of this headwaters village comes from a clan that appears in records in the age of warring states. That clan served as retainers of the lord who ruled Saku and of a warlord of Kai, and built a mountain castle surrounded on three sides by the river. After a time when it was one with the valley village next door, in the warring-states age the village split into north and south, and its northern part walked on as this village. In a headwaters valley closed in by mountains, people lived in the limited flat land, and the village kept a smallness among the foremost in Nagano. A small headwaters valley in the mountains has walked on while keeping the name of a warring-states lord — upon that history the present of this village stands.

What characterizes Kitaaiki is that, while carrying the history of a warring-states lord’s name and the smallness of a mountain hollow, it has reduced its population to the seven hundreds over twenty years. From 1,025 in 2000 to 752 in 2020, some two hundred and seventy were lost over twenty years, and it fell below a thousand. The terrain of the headwaters of a river rising from a mountain over 2,000 meters gives only a little flat land for living along the river, and cannot take residential or industrial land as a lowland city does. In a headwaters valley closed in by mountains, the outflow of the young generation has continued, it can be read.

The share aged 65 and over rose once past four in ten from 37.7% in 2000, then came to 35.9% in 2020. This recent sway in the figure is more accurately read not as aging having eased, but as a phenomenon peculiar to a small village: because the population is extremely small, even a slight movement of a few households shifts the share greatly. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.14 in FY2023 — at a level covering only the mid-teens percent of expenditure with its own tax revenue, leaning heavily on the support of the state. The childcare waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025, and the share of households with children was 16.7% in 2020. A population fallen to the seven hundreds, a swaying aging rate, fiscal stamina of the mid-teens percent. These figures all extend from the single terrain of “a headwaters valley rising from a mountain of 2,000 meters.” In a village with a small base, pulling out only one indicator leads, instead, to misreading.

Kitaaiki carries several distinctive histories. One is its terrain of a mountain hollow at the headwaters: above the village rises a mountain over 2,000 meters, and the river and tributaries that rise from it descend the valley while creating many waterfalls. Another is its history of keeping, as the village name, the name of a clan that appears in records in the age of warring states, served as retainers of the lord of Saku and of a warlord of Kai, and built a mountain castle surrounded on three sides by the river. The terrain of a headwaters valley closed in by mountains gives only a little flat land for living along the river, and has kept the village among the smallest in Nagano.

Kitaaiki is the village where a small headwaters valley in the mountains walked on keeping the name of a warring-states lord. From the mountain of 2,000 meters, to the headwaters of the Aiki River, to the name of a warring-states lord, to a population fallen to the seven hundreds — the geography of “a headwaters valley rising from a mountain over 2,000 meters” set the village’s smallness and its decline by leaving the flat land for living only in the limited riverside. The memory of the warring-states clan kept in the village name and the present population in the seven hundreds both come out of the same narrowness of the headwaters valley.