Gojo-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 28,000 (27,927 in 2020). Its course is a consistent decrease. From 35,205 in 2000, through 37,375 in 2005, 34,460 in 2010, and 30,997 in 2015, to 27,927 in 2020. In 2005 it incorporated two villages of the southern mountain recesses, but both being sparsely populated mountain villages, the step in the population of the city as a whole is small.

Looking inside, the figure of a town continuing into the mountain recesses of the Kii Peninsula shrinking appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 20.7% in 2000 to 37.1% in 2020, approaching four in ten. The household-with-children share is low at 13.9% in 2020, and the Childcare Waitlist is zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.33 in fiscal 2023 — its own tax revenue can cover only about three-tenths of expenditure, and dependence on allocation tax is large. The figure of a town that was a post of the highway, decreasing its population consistently while deepening its aging, appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of the post of the Kishu Kaido and the beacon for overthrowing the shogunate.

Gojo’s history is made of the siting as a post of the highway linking Osaka and Kii, and of the event at the end of the Edo period that occurred at that post. The old layer is the highway. This land opened on the north bank of a great river, at the crossing of highways heading east to Ise and west to Kii. At the beginning of the Edo era, the lord who built a castle in this land made a new town so as to link the castle town with the neighboring village, and because that town’s street was a part of the highway linking Osaka and Kii, the town flourished as a merchant town and a post town. Merchant houses lined the highway, and among them remain town houses of old date even within the country. This townscape of continuous merchant houses on the north bank of the river later became an object of national preservation.

And at the end of the Edo period, this post became the stage of an event that moved the age. At the end of the Edo era, a band raising the overthrow of the shogunate attacked the shogunate’s office that was in this land and raised a beacon for overthrowing the shogunate. This incident, later called by that band’s name, is known as one forerunner of the upheaval at the end of the Edo period. The road to becoming a city too mirrors this town. This land became a city in the mid-Showa era, joining the post town as its core with the surrounding villages, and in 2005 incorporated two villages of the southern mountain recesses, taking into its city area as far as the deep mountain recesses of the Kii Peninsula. The post of the highway linking Osaka and Kii and the beacon for overthrowing the shogunate — upon this history of the highway and the end of the Edo period, which the siting of the north bank of a great river held, the present Gojo stands.

What characterizes Gojo is that, holding the history of a post of the Kishu Kaido, it decreases its population consistently and deepens its aging. From 35,205 in 2000 to 27,927 in 2020, more than seven thousand were lost over twenty years. The age in which the traffic of the highway made the post flourish has receded, and this land continuing into the mountain recesses of the Kii Peninsula is far from the great cities and finds it hard to draw in new workplaces widely. Partly because the two villages incorporated in 2005 were sparsely populated mountain villages, it can be read that the city as a whole has decreased its population consistently as the young generation moves to the urban areas in search of workplaces. That the share aged 65 and over approached four in ten at 37.1% in 2020, and the household-with-children share is low at 13.9%, is also the expression of that population make-up.

On the other hand, the Childcare Waitlist is zero in both 2024 and 2025. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.33 is a level where its own tax revenue can cover only about three-tenths of expenditure, with large dependence on allocation tax. It mirrors that, as a town that was a post of the highway and as a city area holding much mountain recesses, its own tax base has its limits. The population decreasing consistently, aging approaching four in ten, and fiscal strength on the weak side — these are different cross-sections of one long course, in which a town supported by the route of traffic shrinks together with the shifting of that route. Take out only one indicator, and the image of the town cannot be grasped.

Gojo holds several functions of its own. One is the history of a post of the highway linking Osaka and Kii, holding the old layer where merchant houses line the north bank of the river and a townscape including town houses of old date even within the country remains. Another is the history of being the land where, at the end of the Edo period, a band raising the overthrow of the shogunate attacked the local office and raised a beacon for overthrowing the shogunate, keeping its character as the stage of a forerunner of the upheaval at the end of the Edo period. And the siting on the north bank of a great river, where the highways to Ise and Kii cross, called in the post town.

Gojo is the town where a beacon for overthrowing the shogunate rose at a post of the highway. From the merchant town of the highway linking Osaka and Kii, to the stage where a beacon for overthrowing the shogunate rose at the end of the Edo period — the street of the post, where people, goods, and information once crossed ceaselessly, now remains as a quiet townscape of merchant houses. The age in which the traffic made the town flourish, and the age in which that traffic shifted to rail and automobile and the town shrank, form the front and back on the same street. The memory of the bustle and the quiet of the present coexist in this townscape on the north bank of the river.