Ise-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 123,000 (122,765 in 2020). What I want to note first here is that the surge of some thirty-two thousand, from 97,777 in 2005 to 130,271 in 2010, is not the result of people increasing naturally. It owes to a merger that joined two neighboring towns and one village in 2005, and the step in the figures mirrors that merger.

On top of that, looking inside the post-merger figures, from 130,271 in 2010 to 122,765 in 2020, it has fallen by about seven thousand five hundred over ten years. Those under 15 thinned steadily from the post-merger 16,967 in 2010 to 14,205 in 2020. The share aged 65 and over rose from 21.4% in 2000 to 31.8% in 2020, passing three in ten. The household-with-children share is 19.8% (2020), the Childcare Waitlist has been zero in recent years, and the Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.57 in fiscal 2023. The figure of a temple-gate town widened by the merger, quietly aging, appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of the two torii-front towns.

Ise’s skeleton is set by the history of two towns that opened before the shrine coming together into one. The Ise Grand Shrine is divided into the Inner Shrine (Naiku) and the Outer Shrine (Geku), and before each torii a town grew up to receive the pilgrims. What developed before the Inner Shrine was Uji; what matured before the Outer Shrine was Yamada. For a long time the two walked as separate towns, sometimes in opposition. Pilgrimage to the shrine nurtured the two temple-gate towns — this was the foundation of the city.

Those two towns came together into one. In 1889 (Meiji 22), the long-opposed Uji and Yamada merged to become the town of Ujiyamada, and in 1906 (Meiji 39) it took city status as Ujiyamada City. In Mie Prefecture it is the third city, after Tsu and Yokkaichi. In the Edo period the shogunate had set the Yamada magistrate’s office for the management of the shrine, so the temple-gate towns were also placed under public administration. Two torii-front towns into one city — that course decided the town’s character.

Then the city’s name changed. In 1955 (Showa 30), on the occasion of a merger with neighboring villages, Ujiyamada City changed the city’s name to "Ise City." The name Ujiyamada as a city was abolished, but it still remains in the names of stations and schools. Further, in 2005 (Heisei 17), the former Ise City newly merged with Futami Town, Obata Town and Misono Village to widen into the present city area. Beginning with two temple-gate towns, becoming Ujiyamada City, renamed Ise City, and widened by the merger — this town’s shape stands upon the history of being a temple-gate town of the shrine.

What characterizes Ise is that, after the merger widened the city area, the population declines gently and the aging passes three in ten. From the post-merger 2010 to 2020, the total population fell by about seven thousand five hundred, and those under 15 thinned steadily. Without large inflow, the generations already living simply grow older — a shape common to mature temple-gate towns.

The numbers of living infrastructure mirror this transition, too. The primary schools rose from nineteen to twenty-five with the merger of 2005, as the school networks of the joined towns and village were bundled. Thereafter, in step with the decline of children, they decreased in stages, moving in recent years at around twenty-two. The schools that rose all at once quietly decrease with the decline of children. The Childcare Waitlist has stayed at zero in recent years, but this owes less to having met demand to the end than to a balance of supply and demand amid thinning children. The town that received pilgrims as a temple-gate town of the shrine, widened by the merger, has now entered a maturity poor in inflow. The total population declines gently, children thin, and the aging passes three in ten — the figure of a temple-gate town in which several such currents proceed at once appears in the numbers. On the Inner-Shrine side and the Outer-Shrine side, and in the former towns and village added by the merger, the speed of aging is probably not uniform either.

Ise holds several functions of its own. One is the history by which Uji, which opened before the Inner Shrine, and Yamada, which matured before the Outer Shrine, came together into one, by which it still keeps strongly its character as a town that receives pilgrimage to the shrine. Another is the course from Ujiyamada City to the renaming as Ise City, where the former city name remains in the names of stations and schools. And the city area bundled by the merger of 2005 holds the temple-gate towns and the surrounding former towns and village in one city.

Ise is a temple-gate town where two towns that opened before the shrine joined into one. From the opposed Uji and Yamada, to Ujiyamada City, to the renaming as Ise City, and to the city area widened by the merger — the history "pilgrimage to the shrine nurtured the two torii-front towns" called the town and set the city’s skeleton. The two torii-front towns of Uji and Yamada, once opposed, were nurtured by pilgrimage to the shrine, and in time joined into one city. The coming and going of pilgrims gathered the two temple-gate towns, which had stood apart, into the same town.