Matsubara-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 118,000 (117,641 in 2020). Its course is a consistent decline. From 132,562 in 2000, through 127,276 in 2005, 124,594 in 2010, 120,750 in 2015, to 117,641 in 2020, about fifteen thousand were lost over twenty years.

Looking inside, the figure of a mature city abutting the south of a great city appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 14.5% in 2000 to 30.0% in 2020 — by more than fifteen points over twenty years — reaching three in ten. The household-with-children share is somewhat low, at 18.1% in 2020, and the Childcare Waitlist is zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.58 in fiscal 2023, a middling level able to cover about six-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue. The figure of the country holding a great king’s tomb, advancing in aging while gently shedding population, appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of the kofun and the south of a great city.

This town’s skeleton is set by the great kofun held at the southern edge of its area and by the position of abutting the south of a great city. The old layer is the kofun. On the southern edge of this town there is a keyhole-shaped tomb whose mound length exceeds three hundred meters, boasting one of the nation’s leading sizes. It is seen as the grave of a great king of an old age, but whose grave it is is uncertain. Its size tells that, in an old age, this area was one corner of the center of a great power. In the medieval era a castle was built on that mound, and in the early-modern era a settlement and a shrine were kept in one quarter of the mound. That one great kofun was used in a different way in each age is the history of the southern edge of this town.

Upon this old country, the modern railway overlapped. This town is on the Kawachi land abutting just south of a great city. Once the railway came through in the modern era, this town became a residential area stringing toward the great city by that railway. Near the great city, with the flat Kawachi land spreading, this town welcomed many households after the war and increased its population. The road to becoming a city mirrors this town too. In the 1950s this land became a city through the merger of one town, two villages and others. The great king’s tomb, the castle on the mound, the country south of a great city, and the residential area stringing by railway — this town’s shape stands upon the history of a kofun and the south of a great city that the Kawachi land abutting the south of a great city held.

What characterizes Matsubara is that, holding a great king’s tomb at the edge of its area, as a country south of a great city it gently sheds population and advances in aging. From 132,562 in 2000 to 117,641 in 2020, about fifteen thousand were lost over twenty years. As a country south of a great city that welcomed many households after the war, one can read that it now meets the aging of that generation and gently sheds population. That the share aged 65 and over rose from 14.5% in 2000 to 30.0% in 2020 — by more than fifteen points over twenty years — reaching three in ten, is the 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 18.1% in 2020, can also be read as the flip side of the town’s age rising. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.58 is a level able to cover about six-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue, in the middle. One can read that the income of the households living south of the great city supports the tax base at the middle. The gently shedding population, the aging that reached 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 in together after the war now raises its years all at once.

Matsubara holds several functions of its own. One is the history of holding, at the southern edge of its area, a kofun of one of the nation’s leading sizes whose mound length exceeds three hundred meters, where in the medieval era a castle was built on the mound and in the early-modern era a settlement and a shrine were kept in one quarter. Another is its character of being the flat Kawachi land abutting just south of a great city, which became, once the railway came through in the modern era, a residential area stringing toward the great city. And the landform of the flat Kawachi abutting the south of a great city overlapped, on this land, both the old age’s king’s tomb and the residential area stringing toward the great city.

Matsubara is the town where a great king’s tomb was held within a residential area south of a great city. From the great kofun at the edge of its area, to the castle on the mound, the country south of a great city, and the residential area stringing by railway — the geography of "the flat Kawachi land abutting the south of a great city" left the old king’s tomb and later called in the residential area stringing toward the great city. The kofun whose mound length exceeds three hundred meters tells that, in an old age, this was one corner of the center of a great power. That same mound bore a castle on it in the medieval era and held a settlement and a shrine in one quarter in the early-modern era. One enormous structure has changed the way it was used in each age.