Nagahama-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 114,000 (113,636 in 2020). This city’s population holds a large step caused by mergers. Nagahama merged with neighboring towns twice, in 2006 and 2010, becoming its present broad city area. Where the former Nagahama City alone was 60,104 in 2000 and 62,225 in 2005, after the two mergers it had risen to 124,131 in 2010, nearly doubling. From there it has gently declined after the mergers, to 118,193 in 2015 and 113,636 in 2020.

Looking inside, the figure of a regional city of northern Lake Biwa appears. The share aged 65 and over is 28.5% in 2020, nearing three in ten, and the household-with-children share is high, at 23.8%. The Childcare Waitlist stood at eleven in both 2024 and 2025, a very small number that nonetheless persists. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.53 in fiscal 2023, a level that can cover a little over half of expenditure with its own tax revenue. The figure of Hideyoshi’s castle town, gently shedding population after the mergers while keeping a high household-with-children share, appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of the castle and the highway.

Nagahama’s skeleton is set by the geography of the northeastern shore of Lake Biwa and by the history of being the starting point of one warlord. In 1573, Hashiba Hideyoshi — the later Toyotomi Hideyoshi — was given the former Azai lands by Oda Nobunaga for his merit in attacking the Azai clan. Hideyoshi built a castle at this place, then called "Imahama," and is said to have taken a single character from the name of his lord Nobunaga to rename the place "Nagahama." Nagahama is the castle town where Hideyoshi held a castle of his own for the first time, the land of a warlord’s departure. It is, in historical geography, the typical case in which a castle town set the skeleton of a town.

Even after that castle was abolished, Nagahama kept flourishing. As the temple-gate town of Daitsu-ji — the Nagahama Gobo — and as a junction where the Hokkoku Road and the water transport of Lake Biwa crossed, it became the central place of the northern-Biwa region. The land highway and the lake’s water transport gathered people and goods to this town.

And in the modern era, along that highway, the building that symbolizes today’s Nagahama was born. In 1900, the Nagahama branch of the 130th National Bank was built along the Hokkoku Road. Because the walls of its Western-style building were of black plaster, the citizens called it "the black-walled bank" with affection. In 1989, with this black-walled building at its core, "Kurokabe Square," gathering glass workshops and shops, opened, and Nagahama became one of the leading tourist towns of Shiga Prefecture. Beginning with Hideyoshi’s castle town, flourishing as a junction of highway and water transport, and becoming a town of glass with the black walls at its core — this town’s shape stands upon the history that the castle, the highway and the lake set.

What characterizes Nagahama is that, after becoming a broad city through two mergers, it is gently shedding population. With the mergers of 2006 and 2010 the former Nagahama City’s population nearly doubled, and thereafter, by 2020, it lost a little over ten thousand. While it gathers commercial and administrative functions as the central city of northern Lake Biwa, in the broad city area that includes the former towns one can read that, holding districts of advancing depopulation, the whole gently declines. That the share aged 65 and over nears three in ten is its expression.

Even so, the household-with-children share is kept high, at 23.8%. One can read this as the expression of the employment of the central city of northern Lake Biwa, and of local industry, having held young households to a degree. The Childcare Waitlist stood at eleven in both 2024 and 2025, a very small number that nonetheless persists. On the other hand, the Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.53 stays at a level able to cover a little over half of expenditure with its own tax revenue, mirroring that the tax source is limited against the expenditure of supporting a broad city area. Hideyoshi’s castle town now gently sheds population while keeping a high household-with-children share, and its fiscal strength is in the middle. The population gently declines, child-rearing households are many, and the fiscal strength is in the middle. The employment of the central city of northern Lake Biwa and local industry hold young households, while the expenditure of the broad city area keeps the finances in the middle.

Nagahama holds several functions of its own. One is the history of being the castle town where Hideyoshi first held a castle, a birth as the land of a warlord’s departure. Another is its character as a junction where the Hokkoku Road and the water transport of Lake Biwa crossed, keeping the memory of having gathered people and goods as the central place of the northern-Biwa region. And the town of glass that opened with the black walls at its core gives this town the face of one of Shiga Prefecture’s leading tourist destinations.

Nagahama is a town of northern Lake Biwa raised by a castle, a highway and a lake. From Hideyoshi’s first castle town, to a junction of highway and water transport, to a town of glass with the black walls at its core — the geography "opening on the northeastern shore of Lake Biwa" called the castle, the highway and the lake’s water transport, and set the town’s skeleton. It is the castle town where Hideyoshi held a castle of his own for the first time, the land of a warlord’s departure. That castle called the keystone of the highway and the lake’s water transport, and after the castle was lost it continued into a town of glass with the black walls at its core.