Tajimi-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 110,000 (106,732 in 2020). This city’s population has a step from a merger. Tajimi City incorporated Kasahara Town in 2006, becoming its present municipal area. The 2000 population before the incorporation was 104,135 and 2005 was 103,821, which, with Kasahara Town added, became 112,595 in 2010, then fell gently after the incorporation to 110,441 in 2015 and 106,732 in 2020.

Looking inside the figures, the figure befitting a basin city to the northeast of Nagoya appears. The share aged 65 and over rose more than double over twenty years, from 14.5% in 2000 to 31.2% in 2020, past three in ten. The household-with-children share is 20.8% in 2020, and the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.68 in fiscal 2023 — a level on the higher side for a provincial city, whose own tax revenue can cover about two-thirds of expenditure. The figure of the city of Mino ware and heat, losing population after the incorporation and deepening its aging sharply while keeping a higher-side fiscal stamina, appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of Mino ware and the basin.

Tajimi’s skeleton is set by the geography of a basin surrounded by mountains and the history of the ceramics the earth underfoot raised. The old layer is Mino ware. This whole area is a great production center of Mino ware, said to continue from around the beginning of the 7th century. A basin blessed with fine pottery clay supported the production of ceramics for more than a thousand years, and Tajimi prospered as one of its centers. Within the city, kilns and facilities handling ceramics are still scattered, and many people gather at the annual pottery festival. Kokeizan Eihoji, an old temple of the Rinzai sect, is known for its garden as a noted spot for autumn leaves and conveys the depth of the city’s history. The blessing of the geography of the pottery clay underfoot was translated into the industry of ceramics — an example, in economic geography, of how the siting of a resource gives rise to a distinctive industry.

And one more thing: this basin landform brought the city a distinctive climate. Surrounded by mountains and apt to trap heat, this basin city rises markedly in temperature in summer. In August 2007, Tajimi recorded 40.9 degrees, the highest air temperature in Japan at the time. Since then this city has come to be known as "the hottest town in Japan." The basin landform that gave birth to ceramics brought the city another face as well — the highest air temperature in the country. More than a thousand years of kilns continued, and the basin climate summoned extreme heat — this city’s shape stands upon the history of ceramics and climate that the geography of a basin surrounded by mountains held.

What characterizes Tajimi City is that, while holding the history of more than a thousand years of pottery making, it keeps its population to a degree by the geography of being near Nagoya, while gently losing it after the incorporation. From 112,595 in 2010, with Kasahara Town added, to 106,732 in 2020, it fell by some six thousand over ten years. Located to the northeast of Nagoya, with a siting from which one can commute to Nagoya by rail, it has tied down young households to a degree, while in recent years it has turned to a gentle fall in population, as it can be read. That the household-with-children share keeps 20.8% in 2020, too, can be read as an expression of that siting incorporated into the Nagoya metropolitan sphere.

On the other hand, the share aged 65 and over rose more than double over twenty years, from 14.5% to 31.2%. It can be read that the aging of the generation that worked in the old-established industry of pottery and that of the generation who moved to the suburban residential areas overlapped, advancing on a steep gradient. The Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.68 is a higher-side level whose own tax revenue can cover about two-thirds of expenditure, and it can be read that the local industry, pottery foremost, and the economy of the Nagoya metropolitan sphere give thickness to the tax source. The Childcare Waitlist, too, has stayed zero in both 2024 and 2025. The city of Mino ware and heat now keeps its population to a degree by its siting near Nagoya, deepens its aging sharply, and keeps a higher-side fiscal stamina. The population falls gently, the aging deepens sharply, and the fiscal stamina is on the higher side. These three look separate, but are no more than the front and back of the same basin history: the thickness of the local economy that a thousand years of kilns supported, and the aging of the generation that bore it.

Tajimi holds several functions of its own. One is the history of Mino ware, said to continue from the 7th century, holding the old stratum of a production center of ceramics over more than a thousand years. Another is the old temples, Eihoji foremost, retaining the depth of the city’s history. And the geography of a basin surrounded by mountains gives this city the distinctive structure of "the hottest town in Japan," which recorded the highest air temperature in the country.

Tajimi is a basin city where more than a thousand years of kilns and the hottest temperature in Japan dwell together. From a production center of Mino ware, to a city of pottery in the Nagoya metropolitan sphere, to a basin that records extreme heat — the geography of "being a basin surrounded by mountains and apt to trap heat" summoned ceramics and at the same time brought the hottest temperature in the country, setting the city’s skeleton and face. Before the aging rate that leaped more than double lies the fire of kilns continuing from the 7th century. The basin that has fired for a thousand years now copies out the age of those who bear it.