Yamatokoriyama-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 83,000 (83,285 in 2020). Its course is a gentle decrease. From 94,188 in 2000, through 91,672 in 2005, 89,023 in 2010, and 87,050 in 2015, to 83,285 in 2020, about eleven thousand were lost over twenty years.

Looking inside, the figure of a castle town near a great urban sphere deepening its aging appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 15.8% in 2000 to 32.8% in 2020 — more than doubling over twenty years — and passed three in ten. The household-with-children share is 19.5% in 2020. And the Childcare Waitlist is five in 2024 and six in 2025 — rare among the towns treated in this article, it is not zero. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.64 in fiscal 2023, a middling level for a small-to-mid city, able to cover about six-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue. The figure of the town of goldfish and the castle town, decreasing its population and deepening its aging, while the Childcare Waitlist remains in small numbers, appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of the castle and the goldfish.

Yamatokoriyama’s history is made of a castle built as a key holding the throat of Osaka, and of the goldfish farming that took root in its castle town. The old layer is the castle. At the end of the Warring States era a castle was built in this land, and in time, by the hand of a daimyo who was the younger brother of a ruler, it was nearly completed into a structure surrounded by a triple moat of inner, middle, and outer. Sited in the middle of the Nara Basin and holding the road leading to Osaka, this castle was esteemed as a key guarding the throat of Osaka. In the Edo period several daimyo houses made this castle their seat, and the Yanagisawa clan, who later moved from the province of Kai, governed until the Meiji era.

And what made this town known throughout the country is the goldfish. In 1724, when the Yanagisawa clan moved to this land from the province of Kai, goldfish farming is handed down as having begun. At first as a side trade of the warriors who served the domain, and later, when the Meiji era came, as a side trade of warriors who had lost their stipends and of farm households, goldfish farming came to be carried on vigorously. The moats spread through the castle town and the ponds for drawing water to the surrounding fields were made use of as water places for raising goldfish. In the castle town of the castle holding the throat of Osaka, goldfish took root as a side trade of the retainers — upon this history of the castle and the goldfish, which the geography of the Nara Basin held, the present Yamatokoriyama stands.

What characterizes Yamatokoriyama is that, holding the history of the castle at Osaka’s throat and the retainers’ side trade of goldfish, it decreases its population and deepens its aging. From 94,188 in 2000 to 83,285 in 2020, about eleven thousand were lost over twenty years. This town, near a great urban sphere and once stretching its population as a bedroom town of the urban sphere, can be read as having decreased its population within a flow in which the dwelling generation raises its years and the young generation moves to the surrounding cities. That the share aged 65 and over passed three in ten at 32.8% in 2020, more than doubling over twenty years, is also the expression of that population make-up.

On the other hand, the Childcare Waitlist remains in small numbers, at five in 2024 and six in 2025. It can be read that, even as the population decreases, there are districts where the receivers cannot fully keep abreast of the demand of households needing childcare. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.64 is a level able to cover about six-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue, middling for a small-to-mid city. It can be read that the urban function as a castle town and the siting near a great urban sphere give a certain thickness to the tax base. The town of goldfish and the castle town now decreases its population and deepens its aging, while the Childcare Waitlist remains in small numbers. The decrease of population, aging passing three in ten, and the waitlist remaining in small numbers — these are different cross-sections of one phase, in which a castle town near a great urban sphere shrinks through the layering of generations, while the supply and demand of childcare diverge by district and leave a remainder. Read by taking out only one number, and the figure of this town of the Nara Basin is mistaken.

Yamatokoriyama holds several functions of its own. One is the history of a castle built as a key holding the throat of Osaka and nearly completed by the hand of a ruler’s younger brother, holding the old layer of a castle town surrounded by a triple moat. Another is the character of the goldfish farming that began together with the lord who moved from the province of Kai and took root as a side trade of the retainers, keeping the history of making use of the castle town’s moats and ponds as water places. And the position in the middle of the Nara Basin, near a great urban sphere, gives this town the peculiar structure of holding dwellers who commute to the urban sphere.

Yamatokoriyama is a town where the castle at Osaka’s throat and the retainers’ side trade of goldfish overlapped. From the castle holding Osaka, to its castle town, and to a town where the retainers’ side trade of goldfish took root — the triple moat dug to guard Osaka and the red shadows of the goldfish now swimming in those moats and ponds overlap on the same water, set apart in time. The water that guarded the castle became the water that raises goldfish. This conversion, in which the moats of arms became, just as they were, the ponds of fish of many colors, flows quietly at the bottom of the scenery of Yamatokoriyama.