This city opened as a post town of an old highway connecting two provinces. Along this highway, holding a deep mountain pass before it, was a post town that gave birth to a literary master. That post town once belonged to the neighboring prefecture, but with the Heisei mergers, through the first cross-prefecture merger in half a century, it became part of this city. To this Tono city that merged a post town across a prefecture line, a station of a new high-speed railway connecting the capital and the west is now about to be built. This city, holding an old highway post town, has, while awaiting the new railway station, quietly lost its population. Nakatsugawa’s numbers are the record of a city inscribed with the history of the Nakasendo stations and a cross-prefecture merger.
A city in the southeastern part of Gifu Prefecture, in the Tono region near the border with the neighboring prefecture, opening at the foot of a high mountain. To read its population, one must take the merger into account. In 2005 Nakatsugawa City merged surrounding towns and villages and, across the prefecture line, a village of the neighboring prefecture, widening its municipal area. The 2000 population of the former Nakatsugawa City before the merger was 54,902, and after the merger, in 2005, it was 84,080. From there it moved to 76,570 in 2020. What I (Atlas) want to read here is not the sign "the post town of the Nakasendo," but the causal thread: how the history of the Nakasendo stations and a cross-prefecture merger is translated into today’s population and finances.
01 · See the present Nakatsugawa City in its numbers
In the latest Population Census the population is about seventy-seven thousand (76,570 in 2020). To read this city’s population, one must take the merger into account. In 2005 Nakatsugawa City merged surrounding towns and villages and, across the prefecture line, a village of the neighboring prefecture, widening its municipal area. The 2000 population of the former Nakatsugawa City before the merger was 54,902, and after the merger, in 2005, it was 84,080. The step in population between 2000 and 2005 in this article mirrors this expansion of the municipal area by the merger. From there it fell gently after the merger, to 80,910 in 2010, 78,883 in 2015 and 76,570 in 2020.
Looking inside the figures, the figure of a highway city at the foot of a mountain appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 21.0% in 2000 to 32.6% in 2020, past three in ten. The household-with-children share is 21.2% in 2020, and the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.49 in fiscal 2023 — a middling level whose own tax revenue can cover half of expenditure. The figure of a highway city that merged a post town across a prefecture line, losing population after the merger while its aging advances, appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of the highway station and the cross-prefecture merger.
Source: Population Census (Statistics Bureau, MIC) / Local Government Finance Survey, Fiscal Capacity Index (MIC) / Childcare Facility Status Report (Children and Families Agency) / Real Estate Information Library (MLIT)
02 · The post town of a highway connecting two provinces, the post town that gave birth to a literary master, the cross-prefecture merger after half a century, the new railway station — the history behind the numbers
This city’s skeleton is set by the history of a post town of an old highway connecting two provinces, the cross-prefecture merger, and the railway station newly to be built. The opening layer is the highway. This city lies in the Tono region near the border with the neighboring prefecture, at the foot of a high mountain, and opened as a post town of an old highway connecting two provinces. Along this highway, holding a deep mountain pass before it, were several post towns, among them a post town that gave birth to a literary master. The post town of the highway is the history of this city’s center.
The Heisei mergers bound this highway post town into one. In 2005 this city merged the surrounding towns and villages, and together with them, across the prefecture line, a village that had belonged to the neighboring prefecture. The cross-prefecture merger was the first in half a century. That post town that gave birth to a literary master became, through this cross-prefecture merger, part of this city from the neighboring prefecture. The path by which it became a city also mirrors this city. This place became a city in the 1950s and, with the Heisei mergers, widened its municipal area across the prefecture line. And now, to this city, a station of a new high-speed railway connecting the capital and the west is about to be built, close to the station of the existing railway. The post town of a highway connecting two provinces, the post town that gave birth to a literary master, the cross-prefecture merger after half a century, and the new railway station — this city’s shape stands upon the history of the highway and the merger that the post town of a highway connecting two provinces held.
Source: Nakatsugawa City / Magome-juku (the 43rd station of the Nakasendo and the southernmost of the eleven Kiso stations, the birthplace of the literary master Toson Shimazaki; it once belonged to Yamaguchi Village, Kiso County, Nagano Prefecture, but moved to Nakatsugawa City, Gifu Prefecture, with the cross-prefecture merger of Yamaguchi Village in 2005 — overview) / Yamaguchi Village (Nagano Prefecture) (incorporated into Nakatsugawa City, Gifu Prefecture on 2005-02-13; this cross-prefecture merger was the first in 46 years since 1959 and the only one in the Heisei era; it includes Magome-juku — overview) / Nakatsugawa City / the (provisional) Gifu Prefecture station of the Linear Chuo Shinkansen (a ground-level station to be set near the Mino-Sakamoto Station of the JR Chuo Main Line in the Sendanbayashi district of Nakatsugawa City; an eastern Mino town that looks up to Mount Ena — overview) / Nakatsugawa City (Nakatsugawa Town gained city status in 1952 → in 2005 it incorporated surrounding towns and villages and Yamaguchi Village of Nagano Prefecture; eastern Mino near the Nagano border at the foot of Mount Ena; the stations of the Nakasendo — overview)
03 · In the highway city that merged a post town across a prefecture line, losing population after the merger and advancing its aging
What characterizes Nakatsugawa City is that, holding the history of a post town of a highway connecting two provinces, it merged a post town across a prefecture line and, after the merger, loses population and advances its aging. From 84,080 after the merger in 2005 to 76,570 in 2020, it fell by some seventy-five hundred over fifteen years. Even in this city, which opened as a highway city at the foot of a mountain, a part of the younger generation moved to the larger nearby cities, and, combined with the aging of the mountain land added by the merger, the age of the whole city has risen, as it can be read. That the share aged 65 and over passed three in ten at 32.6% in 2020 is an expression of this.
On the other hand, the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The household-with-children share is 21.2% in 2020. The Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.49 is a level whose own tax revenue can cover half of expenditure, middling. It can be read that the income of the households living in the highway city supports the tax source at the middling level. The highway city that merged a post town across a prefecture line now loses population after the merger while advancing its aging. And now, a station of a new high-speed railway is about to be built, and how it will bear on the city’s flow of people and goods has not yet appeared in the numbers. The population fell after the merger, the aging passed three in ten, and the fiscal stamina is middling. But upon this row of numbers, not a single shadow yet falls of the high-speed railway station about to be built close by.
Source: Population Census (Statistics Bureau, MIC) / Local Government Finance Survey, Fiscal Capacity Index (MIC) / Childcare Facility Status Report (Children and Families Agency)
04 · A city where the post town of a highway connecting two provinces merged a post town across a prefecture line
Nakatsugawa holds several functions of its own. One is the history of opening, in the Tono region near the border with the neighboring prefecture at the foot of a high mountain, as a post town of an old highway connecting two provinces. Another is the character that, with the Heisei mergers, it merged a post town that gave birth to a literary master, which had belonged to the neighboring prefecture, through the first cross-prefecture merger in half a century, and now awaits a station of a new high-speed railway. And this position as the post town of a highway connecting two provinces drew to this city both the highway city and the merger across the prefecture line.
Nakatsugawa is a city where the post town of a highway connecting two provinces merged a post town across a prefecture line. From the post town of a highway connecting two provinces, through the post town that gave birth to a literary master, the cross-prefecture merger after half a century, to the new railway station — the geography of "the foot of a mountain in the Tono region near the border with the neighboring prefecture" opened the highway post town and, through the merger across the prefecture line, drew even a neighboring prefecture’s post town to this city. To the highway post town that once connected two provinces, a station of a high-speed railway connecting the capital and the west is now about to be built. Whether the role of drawing people and goods at the same place will be passed from the highway to the railway — that answer has not yet appeared in the numbers.
Source: Nakatsugawa City / Magome-juku (the 43rd station of the Nakasendo and the southernmost of the eleven Kiso stations, the birthplace of the literary master Toson Shimazaki; it once belonged to Yamaguchi Village, Kiso County, Nagano Prefecture, but moved to Nakatsugawa City, Gifu Prefecture, with the cross-prefecture merger of Yamaguchi Village in 2005 — overview) / Yamaguchi Village (Nagano Prefecture) (incorporated into Nakatsugawa City, Gifu Prefecture on 2005-02-13; this cross-prefecture merger was the first in 46 years since 1959 and the only one in the Heisei era; it includes Magome-juku — overview) / Nakatsugawa City (Nakatsugawa Town gained city status in 1952 → in 2005 it incorporated surrounding towns and villages and Yamaguchi Village of Nagano Prefecture; eastern Mino near the Nagano border at the foot of Mount Ena; the stations of the Nakasendo — overview)
05 · Atlas note — a city that merged a post town across a prefecture line awaits a new railway station
Lay out Nakatsugawa’s numbers and the indicators of a highway city at the foot of a mountain line up: a population falling after the merger, an aging rate of 32.6%, a household-with-children share of 21.2%, and a fiscal capacity of 0.49. But when I (Atlas) read this city with the accountant’s eye, what concerns me most is the singularity of this city’s history of having merged the neighboring prefecture’s post town "across the prefecture line." With the Heisei mergers, this city merged, across the prefecture line, a village that had belonged to the neighboring prefecture. The cross-prefecture merger was the first in half a century. That post town that gave birth to a literary master was once part of the neighboring prefecture, but through this cross-prefecture merger it became part of this city. The event of the prefecture border — a line usually thought immovable — being redrawn along the ties of people’s lives is rare.
One more thing to weigh is that this city, upon the history of an old highway post town, awaits a station of a new high-speed railway. To this city, which opened as a post town of an old highway connecting two provinces, a station of a new high-speed railway connecting the capital and the west is now about to be built, close to the station of the existing railway. A city that connected people and goods by an old highway is now about to draw the flow of people and goods again by a new railway. Whether the role of drawing people and freight at the same place will be passed from the highway to the railway — upon the row of numbers of population, aging and finances laid out this far, not a single shadow of that station yet falls. The material for judgment is not yet all in. The next Population Census will mirror its first outline.
Source: Population Census (Statistics Bureau, MIC) / Nakatsugawa City / Magome-juku (the 43rd station of the Nakasendo and the southernmost of the eleven Kiso stations, the birthplace of the literary master Toson Shimazaki; it once belonged to Yamaguchi Village, Kiso County, Nagano Prefecture, but moved to Nakatsugawa City, Gifu Prefecture, with the cross-prefecture merger of Yamaguchi Village in 2005 — overview) / Yamaguchi Village (Nagano Prefecture) (incorporated into Nakatsugawa City, Gifu Prefecture on 2005-02-13; this cross-prefecture merger was the first in 46 years since 1959 and the only one in the Heisei era; it includes Magome-juku — overview) / Nakatsugawa City (Nakatsugawa Town gained city status in 1952 → in 2005 it incorporated surrounding towns and villages and Yamaguchi Village of Nagano Prefecture; eastern Mino near the Nagano border at the foot of Mount Ena; the stations of the Nakasendo — overview)
Editor’s note: all figures and sources are drawn from official statistics. The prose follows Atlas’s voice, and AI (atlas-handcrafted-reverse-v1 (Daiki 2026-06-02)) handled the shaping of the text. Evaluative or predictive language (such as “a good buy” or “attractive”) is intentionally left out. Revision id: wave22_8