Kakegawa-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 115,000 (114,954 in 2020). What I want first to note is that the sharp increase of something over thirty-seven thousand, from 80,217 in 2000 to 117,857 in 2005, is not the result of people increasing naturally. It is due to the former Kakegawa City and two towns forming a new merged municipality in 2005, and the step in the numbers mirrors that merger.

With that in view, looking inside the figures after the merger, from 117,857 in 2005 to 114,954 in 2020 it stayed within a decline of about three thousand in fifteen years, holding nearly flat. This is rare among the many provincial cities whose population keeps declining. On the other hand, those under 15 declined gently from 17,103 in 2005 to 15,655 in 2020, and the share aged 65 and over rose from 17.8% in 2000 to 27.9% in 2020. The household-with-children share is high at 24.5%, the Childcare Waitlist has been zero in recent years, and the Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.84 in fiscal 2023. The figure of a provincial city with an industrial base, keeping its population while keeping the weight of child-rearing households constant, appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of castle, highway and tea.

Kakegawa’s skeleton is set by one castle and by the highway passing before it. In the Azuchi-Momoyama period, this land was the castle town of Yamauchi Kazutoyo. Kazutoyo later became, by his merit at Sekigahara, the daimyo of the whole province of Tosa and moved to Kochi, but he spent an early period of governing his domain as a castle-holding daimyo here in Kakegawa. By that connection, Kakegawa still continues exchanges with the distant city of Kochi. The castle from the warring-states period into the early modern age was this city’s first foundation.

In the Edo era, Kakegawa was at once a castle town and a flourishing Tokaido post town. As a key point along the highway joining Edo and Kyoto, a post town where people and goods came and went opened at the foot of the castle. The two characters of castle town and post town set the town at the center of the plain.

And another face of this area is tea. The hills of Enshu, including Kakegawa, are a land suited to growing tea, and their output is held to be among the country’s leading, with the tea made here registered as a regional collective trademark as "Kakegawa tea." The town holding the three characters of castle town, post town and tea, in 2005, had the former Kakegawa City, Daito Town and Osuka Town form a new merged municipality, widening into the present city area that includes the coastal region. Beginning as the castle town of Yamauchi Kazutoyo, flourishing as a Tokaido post town, becoming a tea-producing region, and widening by merger — this city’s shape stands upon the history of castle, highway and tea.

What characterizes Kakegawa is that, in the fifteen years after the merger, the population has held nearly flat and the household-with-children share is also kept high. That the total population has hardly decreased can be read as an expression of how the location — holding a stop on the Tomei Expressway and the Shinkansen, and an industrial base of agriculture, tea foremost, and of manufacturing — has roughly balanced the inflow and outflow of young households. The household-with-children share of 24.5% is on the relatively high side among the many provincial cities whose population declines.

The numbers of living infrastructure also mirror this stability. The primary schools increased from sixteen to twenty-three with the merger of 2005, and the school networks of the combined towns were bundled. They have since moved around twenty-two, and even as children decline gently, the school network dispersed across the widened city area is roughly kept. The Childcare Waitlist has stayed zero in recent years. The town that opened as the castle town of Yamauchi Kazutoyo, flourished as a Tokaido post town, and became a tea region now, with the industrial base at its back, keeps its population and keeps the weight of child-rearing households. The total population is flat, children decline gently, and the aging proceeds. These three are separate faces of one make-up: the three foundations of castle, highway and tea having gone on holding households in place.

Kakegawa holds several functions of its own. One is the history of the castle town of Yamauchi Kazutoyo, where, as the foot of a castle once governed by a daimyo who later moved to Tosa, exchanges with the city of Kochi still continue. Another is the character along the highway where, as a Tokaido post town, people and goods came and went, still connecting to convenience of traffic today. And it holds the face of agriculture as one of the country’s leading tea-producing regions.

Kakegawa is a city of the plain of Enshu where three things — castle, highway and tea — overlap. From the castle town of Yamauchi Kazutoyo, to the Tokaido post town, to the tea region, and to the city area widened by merger — the history of "a daimyo later entrusted with Tosa setting up a castle, the Tokaido passing before it, and tea growing on the hills" called the town and the industry, and set the city’s skeleton. A daimyo later entrusted with Tosa set up a castle, the Tokaido passed before it, and tea grew on the hills behind. Walk this city, and one notices that the castle’s stone walls, the traces of the post town, and the scent of the tea fields covering the hills lie side by side within the same plain.