Omihachiman-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 81,000 (81,122 in 2020). What I want to note first here is that the increase of some thirteen thousand, from 68,530 in 2005 to 81,738 in 2010, is not the result of a natural increase. It owes to a merger with a neighboring town in 2010, and the step in the figures mirrors that merger.

On top of that, looking inside the post-merger figures, from 81,738 in 2010 to 81,122 in 2020, it holds almost level. Those under 15, too, have hardly fallen, from 11,614 in 2010 to 11,335 in 2020, and the stability of the number of children stands out. The household-with-children share is 24.9%, on the higher side even among the cities taken up here. On the other hand, what differs from many other cities is that the Childcare Waitlist is not zero. A waitlist of fifteen arose in 2024 and forty in 2025, and because the number of children is held, a phase arises in which demand for childcare exceeds supply. The share aged 65 and over rose from 16.1% in 2000 to 27.7% in 2020, and the Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.64 in fiscal 2023. The figure of a merchant city on the rim of the Kinki sphere, where children do not decline and demand for childcare remains, appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of the merchant city.

Omihachiman’s skeleton is set by a single castle that vanished within only a few years, and by the moat that castle left behind. In 1585, Toyotomi Hidetsugu built a castle on Mount Hachiman and laid out a grid-pattern castle town at its foot. Hidetsugu was at the time about eighteen years old, and is said to have been given a domain of over four hundred thousand koku. But he governed this land for about five years, was transferred in 1590, and later the castle too was abolished. The lord’s residence in the castle was short, and the castle itself was lost early.

That the town did not perish even so was because of a single moat Hidetsugu left. Hidetsugu joined to Lake Biwa the Hachiman Moat he had dug around the castle, so that boats plying the lake could be drawn into the castle town. Even after the castle was abolished, this waterway lived on. With the junction where the lake’s water transport and the land highway crossed at their back, the merchants of the castle town went out to every region to trade, even coming to set up shops in Edo and Osaka. This became one source of the "Omi merchants" later known throughout the nation. Even when the castle vanished, the moat and the trade kept the town alive.

And entering the modern era, one architect settled in this merchant town. W. M. Vories, who had come to Japan from America as an English teacher, designed many houses and public buildings from his base in Omihachiman, and devoted himself to medical and educational works as well. Beginning with a castle town, becoming a merchant city of the Omi merchants, and leaving behind Vories’s architecture — this town’s shape stands upon the history of a castle town and trade.

What characterizes Omihachiman is that, while holding the post-merger total population level, the number of children has hardly fallen. While in many regional cities those under 15 fall by ten or twenty percent, this town’s number of children held almost level over ten years. The high household-with-children share of 24.9% accords with this. One can read that the siting on the rim of the Kinki sphere, and the local strength cultivated as a merchant city, have held young households to a degree.

This stability of the number of children produces a distinctive form in the childcare numbers. While many other cities keep the waitlist at zero, in this town a waitlist of fifteen arose in 2024 and forty in 2025. This is the reverse of a city where children declined and demand itself thinned: because the number of children is held, a certain number of families needing childcare keep remaining. The primary schools rose from eleven to thirteen with the merger of 2010, and have moved in recent years at around twelve. The town that began as a castle town and continued as a merchant city of the Omi merchants now holds the number of children on the rim of the Kinki sphere, and accordingly keeps the demand for childcare too. The total population is level, the children are almost level, and the demand for childcare remains. In a city where children thinned, demand too thins and nears zero, but here, because the number of children is held, families seeking childcare keep remaining.

Omihachiman holds several functions of its own. One is the history of being a castle town that Toyotomi Hidetsugu governed briefly, where, though the castle itself was lost early, its town plan and moat remained as the town’s skeleton. Another is the tradition of trade — the Omi merchants who went out to every region with that Hachiman Moat and the lake’s water transport at their back. And the architecture Vories left in the modern era lays another layer upon the townscape of the merchant city.

Omihachiman is a town where trade remained even after the castle vanished. From Toyotomi Hidetsugu’s castle town, to the Hachiman Moat and the Omi merchants that lived on even after the castle was lost, to a city on the rim of the Kinki sphere that left behind Vories’s architecture — the history "the lord left after a short while, but the moat and the trade kept the town alive" called the merchant town and set the town’s skeleton. The lord left after a short while, yet the Hachiman Moat and the trade of the Omi merchants remained in the town, and even Vories’s architecture was left on the rim of the Kinki sphere. Even when the castle vanished, the moat and the trade have kept this town alive.