Iwata-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 167,000 (166,672 in 2020). What I want first to note is that the sharp increase of eighty-four thousand, from 86,717 in 2000 to 170,899 in 2005, is not the result of people increasing naturally. It is due to the city area widening at once by the merger of 2005, and the step in the numbers mirrors that merger. That the school count jumped from eleven in 2004 to twenty-three in 2005, more than doubling, is also due to the same merger.

With that in view, looking inside the figures after the merger, from 170,899 in 2005 to 166,672 in 2020 it declined gently while nearly flat. Those under 15 declined gently from 24,287 in 2005, after the merger, to 21,544 in 2020. The share aged 65 and over rose from 16.6% in 2000 to 28.5% in 2020. The household-with-children share is 23.4% (2020), a comparatively high level, as befits an industrial city. The Childcare Waitlist has been zero in recent years, and the Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.78 in fiscal 2023. The figure of a city area widened by merger, growing old quietly while holding a firm, appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of the ancient center and the firm.

Iwata’s skeleton is set with a new layer of the 20th-century firm overlaid upon an old layer of an ancient and early-modern center. In the ritsuryo age, the provincial capital and the provincial temple of Totomi Province were placed in this land. The political and cultural center of the province called Totomi was here. In time, in the Edo era, the Tokaido post town Mitsuke-juku was placed and flourished as a key point of the highway. From the ancient provincial capital to the early-modern post town — this land long went on being the center of Totomi’s traffic and politics.

What decided the city’s character was the location of one firm in the latter half of the 20th century. In 1972, Yamaha Motor moved its head office to this land of Iwata. With this firm, which makes transport equipment including motorcycles, setting up its head office, related firms and factories gathered in the city, and Iwata strengthened its character as an industrial city. In the same year, this firm’s football club was created, and later grew into the professional football club Jubilo Iwata. The firm’s head office was placed in the city, and employment, tax revenue, and one of the city’s faces — football — were born.

What decided the shape of the present city area was the Heisei merger. In April 2005, the former Iwata City merged with Ryuyo Town, Fukude Town, Toyoda Town and Toyooka Village. The city, with the ancient center and the highway post town and the firm as its core, changed its form into a wide city area combining the surrounding towns and villages. That the school count jumped from eleven to twenty-three, more than doubling, is because the school networks of several former towns and villages were bundled by this merger. Beginning with the Totomi provincial capital, through the highway post town, becoming an industrial city together with the firm, and widening by merger — this city’s shape stands upon the history of an ancient center and a firm’s location.

What characterizes Iwata is that, even after the city area widened by merger, as an industrial city it keeps the child-rearing households constant. The household-with-children share of 23.4% is not a low level among the cities of the country. The households of workers the firm and its related factories gather support this rate, as it can be read. Those under 15 have declined gently after the merger, but not a sharp shrinkage.

The numbers of living infrastructure also mirror both the merger and the stability. The primary schools more than doubled, from eleven to twenty-three, with the merger, and have since moved around twenty-two to twenty-three. This is, rather than consolidation, a form in which the school networks of several former town and village areas were bundled as they were by the merger. The Childcare Waitlist has stayed zero in recent years. The Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.78 shows it can cover near eight-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue, and the tax revenue rising from the firm supports this thickness, as it can be read. However, we should also see together that this is a city that depends greatly on one firm. As long as that firm flourishes, the finances and employment are kept, but the firm’s rise and fall and the city’s fate are joined. The industrial city, with the ancient center and the highway post town as its core, holding the firm and widened by merger, grows old gently while comparatively keeping its children. This number, too, will be misread if not read as a set with its background.

Iwata holds several functions of its own. One is the ancient center where the provincial capital of Totomi was placed in the ritsuryo period, conveying to today, together with the following Tokaido Mitsuke-juku, its history as the center of Totomi’s traffic and politics. Another is the agglomeration of industry with, at its core, the firm whose head office moved here in 1972, where related firms and factories locate in the city and support the city’s finances and employment. And the professional football club born from that firm has become one of the city’s faces.

Iwata is a city where an ancient and early-modern center became an industrial city together with a 20th-century firm. From the Totomi provincial capital, to the highway’s Mitsuke-juku, and to an industrial city with the firm as its core — the history of "the center of Totomi placed on the left bank of the Tenryu River, where later a firm’s head office moved in" overlaid the old centrality and the modern industry. To the ancient center where the Totomi provincial capital was placed, in the 20th century one firm’s head office moved. Across more than a thousand years, the center of administration and the center of industry settled on the same left bank of the Tenryu River.