Hekinan-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 72,000 (72,458 in 2020). This city’s population, with no step from a large merger, rose over twenty years from 67,814 in 2000 through 71,408 in 2005, 72,018 in 2010 and 71,346 in 2015 to 72,458 in 2020 — keeping around 72,000 after increasing. It is a curve that increased and kept its population over twenty years in which many provincial cities lost theirs.

Looking inside the figures, the form fitting an industrial town of western Mikawa appears. The share aged 65 and over, at 23.8% in 2020, does not reach a quarter and is low for a provincial city. The household-with-children share is rather high at 24.2%, and the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. And the Fiscal Capacity Index was 1.16 in fiscal 2023 — a level rare among provincial cities, where its own tax revenue exceeds expenditure. The figure of the town of mirin and thermal power, increasing its population, keeping its aging shallow, and its own tax revenue exceeding expenditure, appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of brewing and industry.

Hekinan’s skeleton is set by the geography of a flat land facing Kinuura Bay, and by the old brewing and the new industry piled there. The old layer is brewing. From the Edo era, this land was a "town of brewing," where storehouses of hon-mirin — Mikawa mirin — and white soy sauce lined up. Among them, Kokonoe Mirin, said to have been founded in 1772, is the oldest hon-mirin maker in Japan, and it still brews mirin by the traditional method. A mild climate and a location blessed with the water transport that carried the raw materials took root the local industry of brewing in this land.

The new layer is industry from the modern era on. With the Port of Kinuura as a base for logistics, upon traditional industries such as casting and ceramics was layered the transport-equipment industry, automobiles foremost. Toyota Motor’s Kinuura Plant also stands in this land. The flat shoreline became a town holding the brewing storehouses and modern industry at once.

And in the present, this town holds an energy facility of among the largest scale in the country. The Hekinan Thermal Power Station, facing Kinuura Bay, is the largest coal-fired power station in the country, holding an output of about 4.1 million kilowatts. Brewing mirin, gathering industry, and holding the largest coal-fired thermal power in the country — this town’s shape stands upon the history of brewing and industry held by the geography of a flat land facing Kinuura Bay.

What characterizes Hekinan is that, with modern industry and a vast power station layered upon the brewing storehouses, that tax source strongly pushes up its population and finances. Over twenty years in which many provincial cities lost population, this town increased and kept around 72,000. It can be read as an expression of industry, transport equipment foremost, making workplaces and drawing in young households. That the share aged 65 and over, at 23.8%, is low for a provincial city, and that the household-with-children share is high at 24.2%, also mirror the youth of that population composition.

The thickness of that industry and power station shows strikingly in the fiscal numbers. The Fiscal Capacity Index of 1.16 is a level where its own tax revenue exceeds expenditure, rarely seen in a provincial city. It can be read as an expression of the fixed-asset tax and corporate tax revenue brought by the largest coal-fired power station in the country and the transport-equipment industry giving so much thickness as to exceed the city’s expenditure. Provincial cities that, without relying on the allocation tax, cover expenditure with their own tax revenue and still have a surplus are by no means many. The Childcare Waitlist, too, has moved at zero, with capacity catching up to the childcare demand of young households. The town of mirin and thermal power now increases its population and keeps finances, with the tax source of industry and the power station, that exceed expenditure. The population increases, the aging is shallow, and the fiscal stamina is strikingly high. These are not separate strokes of luck, but the appearance of a single fact — that the largest coal-fired thermal power in the country and the transport-equipment industry pile up fixed-asset and corporate tax beyond expenditure.

Hekinan holds several functions of its own. One is the history of the brewing of Mikawa mirin, including the storehouse of hon-mirin said to be the oldest in Japan — an old stratum of a brewing town from the Edo era. Another is the casting, ceramics and transport-equipment industry based on the Port of Kinuura, leaving the character of a modern industrial agglomeration. And the history of being the largest coal-fired power station in the country gives this land a peculiar face: a town holding a vast energy facility.

Hekinan is a town where the brewing storehouses and the largest power station in the country coexist. From a town of Mikawa mirin brewing, to a land of Kinuura industry, to a town holding the largest coal-fired thermal power in the country — the geography of "a flat land facing Kinuura Bay" called brewing, industry and the power station, and set the town’s skeleton. An Edo-era brewing storehouse that brewed Mikawa mirin and the largest coal-fired power station in the country line up on the same flat shore of Kinuura Bay. Towns where a brewing storehouse and a vast turbine stand side by side across four hundred years are not many elsewhere.