Kyotango-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 51,000 (50,860 in 2020). Because this city was formed in 2004 when six towns were bundled into one, the statistics treat the period after the founding. The post-founding population has fallen from 62,723 in 2005, through 59,038 in 2010, 55,054 in 2015, to 50,860 in 2020.

Looking inside, the figure of a silk-textile city facing the Japan Sea, raising its age, appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 28.0% in 2005 to 35.3% in 2015 and 37.9% in 2020, nearing four in ten. The household-with-children share is 19.7% in 2020, and the crude birth rate is 5.7 per thousand in 2020. The Childcare Waitlist is zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.29 in fiscal 2023, a level where its own tax revenue can cover only a little under three-tenths of expenditure, leaning heavily on the local allocation tax. The figure of the silk-textile land facing the Japan Sea, shedding population while bundling six towns, appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of the peninsula facing the Japan Sea, silk textiles, and the merger of six towns.

This town’s skeleton is set by its position as a peninsula facing the Japan Sea, and by the chief producer of silk textiles, the prefecture’s northernmost cape, and the merger of six towns. The beginning layer is the peninsula facing the Japan Sea. This land, in the northernmost part of Kyoto Prefecture, occupies most of the Tango Peninsula and faces the Japan Sea to the northwest. It holds within its city area the prefecture’s northernmost cape, and the sea is right beside daily life. The peninsula facing the Japan Sea was this town’s foundation.

On this peninsula, a chief producer of silk textiles was raised. The textile industry — raising silkworms, drawing thread from cocoons, weaving a thin, light silk cloth — was from of old the staple livelihood of this land. The settlements of the mountain folds and the seaside carried on their life to the sound of the loom. The sea and silk were this land’s two faces. The road to becoming a city mirrors this town too. In 2004, the six towns scattered over the peninsula were bundled into one and became the present city. By this, the range the city measures widened greatly. The peninsula facing the Japan Sea, the chief producer of silk textiles, the prefecture’s northernmost cape, and the merger of six towns — this town’s shape stands upon the history of a peninsula opening to the Japan Sea that walked as a silk-textile land and bundled six towns.

What characterizes Kyotango is that, holding the history of a chief producer of silk textiles, it is shedding population even after bundling six towns. From 62,723 in 2005, after the founding, to 50,860 in 2020, about twelve thousand were lost over fifteen years. Even in this land long known for silk textiles, one can read that the demand for the textile thinned, that much of the younger generation moved toward the larger cities, and that the whole town’s age has risen. That the share aged 65 and over neared four in ten, at 37.9% in 2020, is its expression.

On the other hand, the Childcare Waitlist is zero in both 2024 and 2025, the household-with-children share is 19.7% in 2020, and the crude birth rate is 5.7 per thousand in 2020. The Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.29, where its own tax revenue can cover only a little under three-tenths of expenditure, shows the heavy leaning on the local allocation tax seen commonly in peninsula lands. The loss of twelve thousand over fifteen years is a matter of the range that began to be measured when six towns were bundled into one in 2004. Before that, there were six separate populations on the peninsula. Without placing the year the range changed as the starting point, the size of this loss cannot be received rightly.

Kyotango holds several functions of its own. One is the history of a peninsula facing the Japan Sea, occupying most of the Tango Peninsula, facing the Japan Sea to the northwest, and holding the prefecture’s northernmost cape. Another is its character of a chief producer of silk textiles, having held as its staple the textile industry that raises silkworms and weaves a thin, light silk cloth. And it holds the face of a land of merger, where six towns scattered over the peninsula were bundled into one. On the land of a peninsula facing the Japan Sea, the livelihood of weaving a thin, light silk cloth has continued from of old.

Thin silk is bound up with the dress of festive days. When the style of dress changes, the demand thins, and the peninsula has received that thinning head-on as a loss of population. This broad city area, holding the prefecture’s northernmost cape, gathers that whole chain within itself.