Kawachinagano-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 102,000 (101,692 in 2020). Its course is a form of falling after crossing a single peak. With 121,008 in 2000 as its peak, through 117,239 in 2005, 112,490 in 2010, 106,987 in 2015, to 101,692 in 2020, some nineteen thousand were lost over twenty years.

Looking inside, the figure of a city holding housing on the foothills appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 15.1% in 2000 to 35.4% in 2020 — by more than twenty points over twenty years — greatly exceeding three in ten. The household-with-children share is somewhat low, at 17.8% in 2020, and the Childcare Waitlist is zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.57 in fiscal 2023, a middling level able to cover a little over half of expenditure with its own tax revenue. The figure of the country of a highway post and old temples, advancing steeply in aging while shedding population across a peak, appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of the highway and the old temples.

This town’s skeleton is set by the place where several highways toward the sacred mountain gather, by the Southern-Court old temple standing on that land, and by the country of small implements raised from that craft. The beginning layer is the highway. In this town there is a place where several highways heading from the capital and Osaka toward the sacred mountain of Kii gather into one. This land, where people going to worship at the sacred mountain passed, flourished as a post of the highway.

Upon this land of the highway, old temples and the country of implements overlapped. In this town there are two great old temples deeply tied to the side of the court driven from the capital in the war between the Northern and Southern Courts, and a Buddha revered as a national treasure is handed down. From the abundance of cultural assets, this town is also called the country of cultural properties. On the other hand, in this town, from the craft of shaving slender wood, the slender wooden toothpicks for cleaning between the teeth after a meal grew until most of the nation’s were made here. Even in this land near the mountains, with limited land to live on, on the hills near the flatland housing spread in the modern era, and to the principal station along the highway the railway came through. The road to becoming a city mirrors this town too. In the 1950s this land became a city through the merger of one town and five villages. The highway post toward Mount Koya, the Southern-Court old temple, the craft of shaving slender wood, and the hill housing — this town’s shape stands upon the history of a highway and old temples that the foothills of Minami-Kawachi, where the flatland turns into mountains, held.

What characterizes Kawachinagano is that, holding the history of a highway post and the country of old temples, it sheds population across a single peak and advances steeply in aging. With 121,008 in 2000 as its peak, some nineteen thousand were lost over twenty years to 101,692 in 2020. As a southern foothill of the great metropolitan sphere, where housing spread on the hills after the war and many households were welcomed, one can read that this country now meets the aging of that generation and sheds population across a peak. That the share aged 65 and over rose from 15.1% in 2000 to 35.4% in 2020 — by more than twenty points over twenty years — greatly exceeding three in ten, is the striking expression of the generation that moved in together at a certain period now raising its years all at once.

On the other hand, the Childcare Waitlist is zero in both 2024 and 2025. That the household-with-children share is somewhat low, at 17.8% in 2020, can also be read as the flip side of the town’s age rising. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.57 is a level able to cover a little over half of expenditure with its own tax revenue, in the middle. One can read that the income of the households living on the foothills supports the tax base at the middle. The population shedding across a peak, the aging greatly exceeding three in ten, and the middling finances — these three are the separate appearances of the same flow of time, in which the generation that moved together onto the hills at a certain period now raises its years all at once.

Kawachinagano holds several functions of its own. One is the history of being a highway post, where several highways heading from the capital and Osaka toward the sacred mountain of Kii gather into one. Another is its character of being the country of cultural properties, holding two great old temples deeply tied to the side of the court driven from the capital in the war between the Northern and Southern Courts, with a Buddha revered as a national treasure handed down. And it became, from the craft of shaving slender wood, the country that made most of the nation’s small implements, and on the hills near the flatland housing spread. The landform of the foothills of Minami-Kawachi, where the flatland turns into mountains, has held the highway post, the old temples, and the hill housing alike.

Kawachinagano is the town where the highway post toward Mount Koya held a Southern-Court old temple and hill housing. From the highway post toward the sacred mountain, to the Southern-Court old temple, the craft of shaving slender wood, and the hill housing — the geography of "the foothills of Minami-Kawachi, where the flatland turns into mountains" set the highway post, held the old temples, and spread housing on the hills. It is a post where several highways heading from the capital and Osaka toward the sacred mountain of Kii gather, it holds old temples deeply tied to the side of the court driven from the capital in the Northern and Southern Courts, and it even hands down a Buddha that is a national treasure. Towns where the traffic of the highway and the heavy assets of faith and history pile up on one foothill are not so many.