Atami-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about thirty-four thousand (34,208 in 2020). Its trajectory is a deep decline. From 42,936 in 2000, through 41,202 in 2005, 39,611 in 2010 and 37,544 in 2015, to 34,208 in 2020, it fell by nearly nine thousand in twenty years.

Looking inside the figures, the form of a city known as an onsen resort, deeply aging, clearly appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 27.1% in 2000 to 47.9% in 2020, reaching a level conspicuously high even nationally, where nearly half the residents are aged 65 and over. The household-with-children share, at 8.4% in 2020, is exceptionally low. The Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.84 in fiscal 2023 — a level whose own tax revenue can cover something over eight-tenths of expenditure, high for the population scale. The figure of the village of hot water from which the shogunal house had water carried to Edo, losing population greatly and deeply aging its residents, appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of the onsen and the resort.

This city’s skeleton is set by a history tied to the onsen: the long-famous hot water, and the resort the modern railway drew in. The old layer is the water. On this steep slope facing the Sagami sea, famous hot water had welled up of old. The shogun who opened Edo visited this land for days of cure with his children, and is handed down to have praised the water highly. In time the shogunal house took to having this city’s water packed into casks and carried all the way to the castle in Edo, and used the water of this land while at the castle. A record remains that, over the long years, several thousand casks were carried to Edo. This famous water welling up on the seashore became the city’s old foundation.

Upon this water, a modern resort was built. When the railway came in the modern age, this city became a place of hot water easily visited from the great cities for a day or a stay, and grew into a resort gathering people from all over the country. With honeymoon trips and company recreation trips, the city bustled with many people, and inns and hotels lined the slopes overlooking the sea. The path to becoming a city, too, mirrors this city. This land gained city status in the late 1930s, while known as an onsen resort. The water the shogun praised and had carried to the castle in Edo, and the resort the railway called — this city’s shape stands upon the history of the onsen held by a steep slope facing the Sagami sea.

What characterizes Atami is that, while holding the history of an onsen resort, it has lost population greatly and deepened the aging of its residents conspicuously even nationally. From 42,936 in 2000 to 34,208 in 2020, it fell by nearly nine thousand in twenty years. This city, with inns and hotels lining the steep slopes overlooking the sea, has a strong character as a resort that hosts visitors, and its thickness as a place where the young generation lives long, raises children and goes on working was not necessarily great, as it can be read. In addition, it has been a destination to which people of advanced years move, seeking the settled environment of an onsen resort. The character of being a resort one visits, while thin in its thickness as a place of life for the young generation, appears in the loss of population and the deep aging of its residents. That the share aged 65 and over reached 47.9% in 2020, near half the residents, and that the household-with-children share is exceptionally low at 8.4%, are expressions of that population composition.

On the other hand, the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.84 is a level whose own tax revenue can cover something over eight-tenths of expenditure, high for the population scale. This can be read as mirroring how, as an onsen resort, the industries tied to lodging and sightseeing, and the assets of villas and resorts, form a tax source in this city. Even as residents decrease and aging deepens, here is the form of finance peculiar to a resort, where visitors and assets support the tax source. The village of hot water from which the shogunal house had water carried to Edo now loses population greatly and deepens the aging of its residents. The population falls greatly, the aging is near half, and yet the fiscal stamina is high for the scale. That finance holds in a city where the numbers ought to wither as residents decrease is because visitors and the assets of villas support the tax source apart from the residents.

Atami holds several functions of its own. One is the history of a land where famous hot water welled up of old on the slope facing the Sagami sea, where the shogun who opened Edo praised it, and where that water was carried in casks all the way to the castle in Edo. Another is the character of one of the country’s leading onsen resorts, where the modern railway drew people from the great cities and where honeymoon and recreation trips bustled, holding inns and hotels on the slopes overlooking the sea. And the landform of a steep slope facing the Sagami sea tied the water welling up on the seashore, and the nearness from the great cities, to the prosperity of this land’s onsen.

Atami is the onsen resort the shogun praised, whose water was carried to the castle in Edo. From the famous water the shogun visited for cure, to the water carried to the castle in Edo, and the resort the railway called — the geography of "opening onto a steep slope facing the Sagami sea and near the great cities" called the famous water and called the resort, and set the city’s skeleton. In the days when the shogun came for cure, this steep slope flourished with the steam of the hot water. Now nearly half the residents have passed 65, and the assets of villas and resorts support that same slope. The partner of its prime shifted from cure-takers to visitors and assets.