Takamori-machi

In the latest Population Census the population is about twelve thousand eight hundred (12,811 in 2020). From 12,528 in 2000, through 12,976 in 2005 and 13,216 in 2010, it rose past thirteen thousand by around 2010, then fell gently to 13,080 in 2015 and 12,811 in 2020. Seen across the twenty years, it has stayed roughly flat between twelve thousand five hundred and thirteen thousand two hundred.

Looking inside the figures, the figure of a terrace town of dried persimmons that chose a border mountain for its name appears. The share aged 65 and over rose about nine points from 23.7% in 2000 to 32.5% in 2020, but it is only a little over three in ten and is on the younger side among the municipalities lined up in this article. And what stands out is the household-with-children share, 27.4% in 2020 — the highest among the eight municipalities lined up in this article. The employment rate is high at 63.8% in 2020. The Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.41 in fiscal 2023 — a level whose own tax revenue covers a little over four-tenths of expenditure. The figure of a town of dried persimmons that chose a border mountain for its name, keeping its population roughly flat and the highest household-with-children share, appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of the border mountain and the dried persimmon.

This town’s skeleton is set by the mountain rising on the border of two villages, the dried persimmon born in this place, and the terrace with a large elevation difference east and west. The opening layer is the merger and naming. In the mid-Showa era, in this place of the Ina Valley, two villages decided to become one. In deciding the new town’s name, taking either village’s name would make the other look swallowed. So this town chose, as its name, the name of a single mountain standing just on the summit at the border of the two villages. The mountain that had been the border dividing the two villages became the name binding the two into one. Re-reading the border not as a line of separation but as an axis of binding — that naming is this town’s starting point.

Upon it rides the history of the dried persimmon. In one hamlet of this town, dried persimmons made by drying autumn-ripened persimmons to sweeten them have been made since of old. In the Taisho era, a dried persimmon bearing that hamlet’s name was named as a project of the village and sent out into the world as a product. In time that dried persimmon became one of the representative dried persimmons known throughout the country, and this hamlet came to be known as its birthplace. This town lies on the terrace of the western bank of the Tenryu River between the Southern Alps and the Central Alps, with a large elevation difference east and west, where apples and pears are grown in the high places and the persimmons of the dried persimmon in the low places near the Tenryu River. The elevation difference divides the crops grown. The border mountain of two villages, the birth of the dried persimmon, and the terrace of elevation difference — this town’s shape stands upon a naming that re-read the border as an axis of binding, and the history of a dried persimmon born in one hamlet.

What characterizes Takamori-machi is that, while holding the history of choosing a border mountain for its name and giving birth to the dried persimmon, it has kept its population roughly flat and kept the highest household-with-children share among the municipalities of this article. From 12,528 in 2000 to 12,811 in 2020, across the twenty years it has held between twelve thousand five hundred and thirteen thousand two hundred. That, within a Nagano Prefecture where many municipalities lose their population, a town has kept this scale roughly flat can be read as owing to the fruit and dried-persimmon farming that makes use of the elevation difference, and to the trades of manufacturing and commerce, which have kept within the town places to work by which the younger generation can make a living.

And what stands out is the household-with-children share of 27.4% — the highest among the eight municipalities of this article. Combined with the fact that the share aged 65 and over, at 32.5% in 2020, stays only a little over three in ten and is on the younger side in this article, it can be read that a comparatively large number of child-rearing generations live in this town. The employment rate is high at 63.8% in 2020, and the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.41 is a level whose own tax revenue covers a little over four-tenths of expenditure. The terrace town that chose a border mountain for its name keeps its population roughly flat while keeping the highest household-with-children share. The population is roughly flat. The aging is on the younger side in this article. The household-with-children share is the highest. These look like separate numbers, but they branch off from the single fact that the elevation difference has inscribed within the town places to work staggered across the seasons, from fruit to dried persimmons.

Takamori holds several histories of its own. One is the starting point of choosing, when two villages became one, the name of the mountain rising on their border as the town’s name, re-reading the border as an axis of binding. Another is the character that a dried persimmon born in one hamlet became known throughout the country, making it its birthplace. And that town lies on the terrace of the western bank of the Tenryu River between the Southern Alps and the Central Alps, with a large elevation difference east and west, where apples and pears are grown in the high places and the persimmons of the dried persimmon in the low places. The border mountain binds the two villages, and the elevation difference divides the crops grown.

Takamori is a town where a border mountain binds two villages and the elevation difference divides the crops. From the border mountain of two villages, through the birth of the dried persimmon, the terrace of elevation difference, and the flat population and the highest household-with-children share — the geography of "the terrace of large elevation difference on the western bank of the Tenryu River between the Southern Alps and the Central Alps" gave this town both a naming that takes the border mountain as an axis of binding, and a terrace farming that divides crops by elevation. On this terrace, where several bands of differing elevation overlap east and west, apples and pears await human hands in the heights, and the persimmons of the dried persimmon in the lows, at staggered times. The wisdom that re-read a border not as a line of separation but as a name of binding, and the land whose elevation difference gives the breadth of crops, have kept the child-rearing generation in this town.