Ito-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about sixty-five thousand (65,491 in 2020). This city’s population, not by a step of large merger, struck a peak once at 72,441 in 2005, from 71,720 in 2000, and came down through 71,437 in 2010 and 68,345 in 2015 to 65,491 in 2020. It is the curve of a town on the eastern coast of Izu that, having once swelled as a sightseeing place, began to shrink.

Looking inside the figures, the aging is deep. The share aged 65 and over reached 42.7% in 2020, entering the high group even among the cities of the country. The household-with-children share is low at 13.3%, and the Childcare Waitlist has been zero in recent years. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.65 in fiscal 2023, on the side that covers about two-thirds of expenditure with its own tax revenue. The figure of an onsen town holding the most abundant hot water in Honshu, bearing population decline and deep aging, appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of the onsen and the villa land.

Ito’s skeleton is set by the geography of an onsen on the eastern coast of the Izu Peninsula. The discharge volume of Ito Onsen is held to be the most abundant in Honshu, and that abundant hot water has made this city flourish as an onsen town of old. The condition of an onsen facing the sea decided its origin as a sightseeing town.

That onsen town gained another character after the war: villa land. The central part of the city was developed as villa land after the war, and sightseeing facilities gathered as well. The Izu Kogen highland spreading at the foot of Mount Omuro came to be known as one of the leading sightseeing places in the eastern part of the peninsula. The conditions of abundant hot water, the sea and the highland layered upon this city the character of a land of recuperation and villas.

Further back, this city also holds a history joining the sea and foreign lands. Miura Anjin — the English navigator William Adams — built a Western-style sailing ship at the mouth of the Matsukawa River, by command of Tokugawa Ieyasu, here in this land of Ito. At the river mouth there is a park commemorating Anjin, with a sculpture of a Western-style sailing ship set there. Beginning as an onsen town, opened as villa land, and holding a river mouth where a Western-style sailing ship was built — this city’s shape stands upon the history of sightseeing on the eastern coast of Izu.

What characterizes Ito is that the population, having once struck a peak as an onsen sightseeing town, went on declining thereafter and heads toward a deep aging even nationally. From the peak of 2005 to 2020, about seven thousand decreased, and the share aged 65 and over rose to 42.7%. The lowness of the household-with-children share, 13.3%, is also the front and back of the depth of the aging. The character of onsen and villa land tends to draw in older layers through recuperation and relocation, and the composition in which the weight of young households falls appears in this number, as it can be read.

Even so, the core of sightseeing supports the city’s economy. The abundant hot water, held to be the most in Honshu, still gathers the waves of sightseeing people, and into the stamina of a Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.65, this thickness as an onsen town takes effect, as it can be read. The Childcare Waitlist has also been zero in recent years, and the receiving capacity for the decreased number of children is kept. The sightseeing town holding the most abundant hot water in Honshu now bears population decline and deep aging while keeping its core of the onsen and its fiscal stamina in the middle. The population falls, the aging is deep, the core of the onsen remains. The decreasing residents and the remaining bustle of the hot water are the front and back of this same character of the city, which has gone on drawing in older layers through recuperation and relocation.

Ito holds several functions of its own. One is the history of Ito Onsen, boasting a discharge volume held to be the most abundant in Honshu, holding its origin as an onsen town facing the sea. Another is the character of villa land and the Izu Kogen highland opened after the war, holding the face of a land of recuperation and sightseeing. And the history of Miura Anjin building a Western-style sailing ship at the mouth of the Matsukawa River gives this city the memory of having joined the sea and foreign lands.

Ito is a town on the eastern coast of Izu holding the most abundant hot water in Honshu. From the onsen town of abundant hot water, to the villa land opened after the war, to a town holding a river mouth where a Western-style sailing ship was built — the geography of "hot water held to be the most in Honshu welling up, facing the sea and the highland" called sightseeing and recuperation, and set the city’s skeleton. The hot water held to be the most in Honshu has gone on drawing in older layers through recuperation and relocation. That over four in ten of the residents have passed 65 is nothing but the reverse side of that pull having long taken effect.