Toyokawa-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 185,000 (184,661 in 2020). What must first be noted here is that the surge of over sixty thousand, from 120,967 in 2005 to 181,928 in 2010, is not the result of people increasing naturally. It is due to the city area widening through the mergers from 2006 to 2010, and the step in the numbers mirrors that merger. That the number of schools jumped from 16 in 2005 to 26 in 2010 is also due to the same merger.

With that in view, looking inside the figures after the merger, from 181,928 in 2010 to 184,661 in 2020 it has increased gently, almost flat. Those under 15 fell gently after the merger, from 27,294 in 2010 to 25,338 in 2020. The share aged 65 and over rose from 14.7% in 2000 to 26.1% in 2020. The household-with-children share is 24.4% (2020). The Childcare Waitlist has been zero in recent years, and the Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.79 in fiscal 2023. The figure of a city area widened by merger, aging gently while keeping its population, appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of the temple-gate town and munitions.

Toyokawa’s skeleton is set from a town that grew before the gate of a single temple. In the Kamakura period Enpukuzan Toyokawakaku Myogonji was founded, and as faith in the Inari enshrined there spread, a town flourished before the temple’s gate. In the Edo era it was widely known as Toyokawa Inari, and together with the Tokaido post town passing nearby, it gathered many pilgrims. The temple and the town before its gate — this was this town’s starting point.

Upon that temple-gate town, a vast wartime plant was layered. In 1939, the Toyokawa Naval Arsenal opened as a plant producing chiefly the machine guns mounted on the navy’s aircraft and warships, and their ammunition. The construction of the vast munitions plant drew in many workers and pushed up the surrounding population all at once. Against the background of this population increase by the arsenal and the strengthening ties among the surrounding former towns and villages, in 1943 the former Toyokawa Town and others merged to give birth to Toyokawa City. Upon the temple-gate town, a new layer of munitions was overlaid, and the city was born.

But that arsenal was annihilated in a single night. On August 7, 1945, the Toyokawa Naval Arsenal was struck by an air raid; in about thirty minutes of bombing, nearly all the facilities were destroyed, and over 2,500 people were killed. After the war, the arsenal site was converted to other uses, and the town began a different course. And from 2006 to 2010, mergers incorporating the surrounding towns advanced, and the number of schools jumped from 16 to 26. Growing before the temple gate, gathering people through munitions, losing much in the air raid, and widening by merger — this town’s shape stands upon the history of temple-gate town, munitions and merger.

What characterizes Toyokawa is that, after the city area widened all at once by merger, the total population is roughly kept even as children gently fall. From 2010 to 2020 after the merger, the total population slightly increased and those under 15 gently fell. It can be read that the location of the eastern-Mikawa plain, also within the commuting sphere toward Nagoya, holds households in the town and prevents a large collapse of the population.

The numbers of living infrastructure mirror both the merger and the stability. The primary schools increased from 16 to 26 with the merger from 2006, the school networks of the former town areas bundled as they were. Since then they have moved at 26, and even as children gently fall, the school network dispersed across the wide city area is kept. The Childcare Waitlist has stayed zero in recent years. The household-with-children share of 24.4% is on the rather high side among cities of similar scale, showing that the town still holds the child-rearing generation. The eastern-Mikawa town that grew before the temple gate and widened through munitions and merger now ages gently while keeping its population. The flat population and the rather high household-with-children share both lie upon the single continuous history — a wartime plant overlaid on a temple-gate town, and a city area widened by merger.

Toyokawa holds several functions of its own. One is its character as the temple-gate town of Toyokawa Inari, where the temple founded in the Kamakura period and the town that grew before its gate still gather many pilgrims. Another is the history of the wartime Toyokawa Naval Arsenal, where the memory of the vast munitions plant and its air raid is kept in the town as a site that conveys peace. And the wide city area bundled by the mergers from 2006 holds the temple-gate town and the surrounding former towns and villages within a single city.

Toyokawa is a town where two layers, temple gate and munitions, overlap. From the town before the temple gate, to a vast wartime plant, through annihilation by air raid, to a city area widened by merger — the history of "a town growing before the gate of a temple enshrining Inari, upon which a wartime munitions plant was overlaid" called the city’s birth and set the town’s skeleton. A town grew before the gate of a temple enshrining Inari, and upon it a vast wartime munitions plant was overlaid. The air raid annihilated that plant, and the postwar merger widened the city area. Upon the plain where the Toyokawa flows, temple gate and munitions and merger fold over one another in many layers.