The land where the capital of Japan was first divided into a grid still, after thirteen hundred years, holds the temples and shrines of the capital at the center of the city. Nara’s numbers, where the street grid of Heijo-kyo and Todai-ji and Kofuku-ji remain just as they were and which became a town that commutes to Osaka after the war, are the record of a history in which an old capital ceased to be a capital and was remade into a town of living.
An old capital that became, when Heijo-kyo was placed here in 710, a capital of eight reigns over seventy-four years, and that afterward changed its form as a temple-gate sightseeing place and, after the war, as a bedroom town of Osaka. The population fell gently, from 360,310 in 2015 to 354,630 in 2020. What I (Atlas) want to read here is not the impression "it is a town with history," but the causal thread: how the conditions — capital, temples and shrines, and Osaka’s outskirts — are translated into today’s number of children and fiscal capacity.
01 · Measuring Nara’s present position by its numbers
In the latest Population Census the population is about 355,000 (354,630 in 2020). In the five years from 360,310 in 2015, it fell by some five thousand seven hundred. A prefectural capital that, while a leading old capital of the Kansai, has, like many regional cities across the nation, entered a stage of slight decrease.
What I want to note here is that the number of children is thinning faster than the total. Those under 15 fell by more than three thousand, from 42,796 (2015) to 39,706 (2020). Over the same period the share aged 65 and over rose from 28.4% to 31.1%, reaching one in three. The household-with-children share is 18.9% (2020), low for a prefectural capital. Behind the quiet number of a slight decrease of the total population, the make-up of generations has surely shifted upward. The land price of the residential area is around 80,000 yen per m² (80,250 yen in 2026), a level that keeps the thickness of a suburban residential area of the Osaka urban sphere. The Fiscal Capacity Index is 0.70 (2023), short of 1.0, within the structure of a regional city where the shortfall is supplemented by local allocation tax. The Childcare Waitlist fell from 23 (2024) to 14 (2025). Why these numbers take this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of the capital and the geography of Osaka’s outskirts.
Source: Population Census (Statistics Bureau, MIC) / Real Estate Information Library (MLIT) / Local Government Finance Survey (MIC) / Childcare Facility Status Report (Children and Families Agency)
02 · Capital, temple-gate town, Osaka’s outskirts — the history behind the numbers
Nara’s skeleton is the very continuity by which a land that was once a capital survived long even after it ceased to be a capital. In 710, Empress Genmei moved the capital from Fujiwara-kyo to this land, and Heijo-kyo was placed. Thereafter, under eight emperors, a capital was kept for seventy-four years. The town plan, divided into a grid of the jobo system with Suzaku Avenue as its north-south axis, was not spontaneous but drawn by the hand of the state — an old example of what economic geography calls a planned city. Great temples and shrines such as Todai-ji, Kofuku-ji, and Kasuga Taisha were founded at the center of the capital, and in the Shoso-in were stored treasures of Silk Road origin. The street grid of the capital and the temples and shrines placed there are the first foundation of this town.
After the capital moved to Nagaoka-kyo and Heian-kyo, Nara ceased to be the center of politics. But the temples and shrines remained in place, and in the early-modern era Naramachi opened as their temple-gate town, growing in years as a town of craft and commerce, and a place of pilgrimage and sightseeing. The fact of having been a capital remained as historic sites, and the temple-gate of the temples and shrines became a place of living — whereas many old castle towns developed around a castle as their core, Nara wove its town around temples and shrines as its core. And in the Meiji era, railways ran through from Osaka and Kyoto, and later it was inscribed as World Heritage as "Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara." The street grid of the capital, the temples and shrines that remained, and the nearness to Osaka linked by rail shape the present town of sightseeing and dwelling.
Source: Heijo-kyo (annals) / Nara City (the formation of Naramachi, from the medieval to the early-modern era) / Nara City (annals and geography — overview)
03 · An old capital becomes a town that commutes to Osaka
What characterizes Nara is that, behind the signboard of an old capital, the face of a residential area that commutes to the center of Osaka has advanced at the same time. From the 1950s onward, Kintetsu developed residential land such as Gakuen-mae in the Nishinokyo hills, and from the good siting that lets one reach the center of Osaka in under thirty minutes, substantial residential areas spread. While the historic sites of the capital remain in the east of the city, on the west side suburban residential areas planned after the war piled up. The two characters of an old capital and a commuting sphere came to coexist within one city.
When that residential area matures and aging advances, the numbers quietly shift upward. The absolute number of children fell by three thousand over five years, and the share of the elderly reached one in three. A household-with-children share of 18.9% is low for a prefectural capital, suggesting that a town that opened early as a suburban residential area has entered a stage of generational turnover. The Childcare Waitlist fell from 23 to 14. A decrease in the waitlist amid a thinning absolute number of children can be read not so much as supply having exceeded demand, as in a regional city where children thin out, but as the result of supply having followed while demand itself shrank. It has not reached zero, but it is a number moving in a decreasing direction. Children decrease, aging advances, and the waitlist remains while decreasing — the living infrastructure of an old capital holding an old residential area has entered a phase of maturity. This number too, read apart from its background, has its meaning mistaken.
Source: Gakuen-mae (Nara City; the annals of Kintetsu residential-land development) / Population Census (Statistics Bureau, MIC) / Childcare Facility Status Report (Children and Families Agency)
04 · An old capital holding the street grid of the capital
Nara holds several functions of its own. One is the street grid of the capital of Heijo-kyo and the group of historic sites such as Todai-ji, Kofuku-ji, Kasuga Taisha, and the Heijo Palace site, inscribed as World Heritage as "Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara," gathering people from within and beyond the country. Another is the townscape and craft of Naramachi continuing from that temple-gate, supporting its self-definition as an old capital. Further, on the west side, suburban residential areas such as Gakuen-mae, developed by Kintetsu after the war, spread, holding the face of a commuting sphere of the Osaka urban sphere.
Nara, as the prefectural capital of Nara Prefecture, gathers the function of administration upon itself. From the street grid of the capital drawn by the state, to the temple-gate town of the temples and shrines, to a sightseeing old capital, and to a residential city that commutes to Osaka — the origin of having once been a capital has reloaded a different function in each age. The temples and shrines, the historic sites, and the suburban residential areas are all, when one traces back, set upon the same foundation of a land chosen by the state as a capital. Thirteen hundred years after the capital departed, the street grid and the temples and shrines remain in the east, and the postwar suburban residential areas piled up in the west. Nara is one of the few former capitals that survived even after ceasing to be a capital. That is the core of this town.
Source: Nara City (the formation of Naramachi, from the medieval to the early-modern era) / Nara City (annals and geography — overview)
05 · Atlas’s note — do not mistake the signboard of an old capital and the bedroom town of Osaka in a single number
Lay out Nara’s numbers and indicators befitting an old capital holding a mature suburban residential area line up: a slight population decrease, a decline of children, aging of one in three, a fiscal capacity of 0.70, and the gradual decrease of the waitlist. But to put it in my (Atlas) habit, as an accountant, of not mistaking two images within a single number, what I want to be careful of here is not to mistake the image of "an old capital" and the image of "a bedroom town of Osaka" within a single number. That aging reaches one in three and that child-rearing households stay at 18.9% is the figure of a suburban residential area that opened early after the war entering a phase of generational turnover, and does not come into view from the signboard of a thirteen-hundred-year-old capital alone. The fiscal capacity of 0.70, too, is a number within the structure common to prefectural capitals outside the great urban spheres.
Whether one sees it as "an old capital thick with history and culture," or as "a residential city of Osaka’s outskirts that has entered a phase of maturity," changes with the reader’s way of life. What cannot be overlooked is the fact that Nara is one of the few former capitals that survived thirteen hundred years even after ceasing to be a capital. The judgment of whether this land, holding old temples and shrines in the east and postwar residential land in the west, suits one’s skin belongs to the person searching for a place to move.
Source: Population Census (Statistics Bureau, MIC) / Nara City (the formation of Naramachi, from the medieval to the early-modern era) / Nara City (annals and geography — overview)
Editor’s note: all figures and sources are drawn from official statistics. The prose follows Atlas’s voice, and AI (atlas-handcrafted-reverse-v1 (Daiki 2026-05-29)) handled the shaping of the text. Evaluative or predictive language (such as “a good buy” or “attractive”) is intentionally left out. Revision id: wave7n_2