Tanabe-shi

In the most recent Population Census the population is about 70,000 (69,870 in 2020). This city’s population carries a step from the merger. In 2005 the former Tanabe City newly merged with Ryujin Village, Nakahechi Town, Oto Village and Hongu Town to form the present limits. The 70,360 of the former Tanabe City in 2000 became 82,499 in 2005 once the surrounding towns and villages were added, and from there it has fallen gently after the merger — to 79,119 in 2010, 74,770 in 2015, and 69,870 in 2020.

Looking inside the figures, the shape of a city in the southern Kii Peninsula appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 20.2% in 2000 to 33.5% in 2020, passing three in ten. Households with children make up 18.2% (2020), and the childcare waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.38 in fiscal 2023 — its own tax revenue does not reach four-tenths of expenditure, with a large dependence on the allocation tax. The figure shows the town of Kuchi-Kumano losing population and deepening in age after the merger, while holding the waitlist at zero. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without tracing the origins of the largest area in the Kinki region and the Kumano pilgrimage.

Tanabe’s skeleton is set by a geography that holds the mountains and sea of the Kii Peninsula broadly within it, and by its origin as the gateway to the Kumano pilgrimage. What stands out first is its area. Through the 2005 merger, Tanabe City came to hold city limits of about 1,027 square kilometers, the largest in the Kinki region. Taking in deep-mountain towns and villages such as Ryujin Village and Hongu Town, it made a single city of everything from the inland mountains of the Kii Peninsula to the Pacific coast.

At the entrance to these wide limits, an old role is inscribed. Tanabe lies at the point where the Nakahechi and Ohechi of the pilgrimage road toward Kumano — the Kumano Kodo — fork, and it has been called “Kuchi-Kumano,” the gateway to the Kumano pilgrimage. People bound for the three Kumano shrines, beginning with Kumano Hongu Taisha, passed through this land into the mountains. In addition, this town holds a legend that it is the home of Musashibo Benkei, and it is where the naturalist Minakata Kumagusu spent the latter half of his life. It gathered people as the gate town of the Kumano pilgrimage, and in the modern era it nurtured a figure of learning. Holding the largest area in the Kinki region and becoming the gateway to the Kumano pilgrimage — the form of this town stands on the origins held by a geography that takes in the mountains and sea of the Kii Peninsula broadly.

What characterizes Tanabe-shi is that, while carrying the origins of the largest area in the Kinki region and the gate town of the Kumano pilgrimage, it has lost population and deepened in age after the merger. From the 82,499 of 2005, with the surrounding towns and villages added, to the 69,870 of 2020, it lost some twelve thousand over fifteen years. In a land in the southern Kii Peninsula, at a distance from Osaka and Wakayama-shi, one can read population loss and deepening age advancing amid the flow of younger generations moving to cities. In particular, the deep-mountain districts that merged in 2005, such as Ryujin Village and Hongu Town, likely include districts where population loss and aging run stronger than in the city center.

Meanwhile the childcare waitlist has held at zero. This reads as the sign that tourism rooted in the Kumano pilgrimage, and local agriculture and forestry, have held a degree of younger households in place. A fiscal capacity of 0.38 is a level whose own tax revenue does not reach even four-tenths of expenditure, with a large dependence on the allocation tax. Against the expenditure of supporting the largest city limits in the Kinki region, it mirrors the limits of the tax base. The wide area is the town’s character and, at the same time, a reality that pushes up administrative expenditure. The town of Kuchi-Kumano now loses population and deepens in age after the merger, while holding the waitlist at zero, its finances supported by the allocation tax. Population falling, aging past three in ten, fiscal strength on the weaker side. But line up only the aging rate, setting aside the single point of the largest area in the Kinki region, and the circumstances of this city holding deep-mountain limits do not come into view. The numbers form an image only together with the premise of area.

Tanabe holds roles of differing character sharing one set of city limits. One is the largest area in the Kinki region, at about 1,027 square kilometers, with a breadth that made a single city of everything from mountains to coast. Another is the origin of “Kuchi-Kumano,” where the Nakahechi and Ohechi of the Kumano Kodo fork, leaving the old layer of the gateway to the Kumano pilgrimage. And the memory of a Benkei-homeland legend and of the land where Minakata Kumagusu spent the latter half of his life gives this place the distinctive character of a town that nurtured both folklore and a figure of learning.

Kuchi-Kumano, the gateway to the Kumano pilgrimage, and the vast area that is the largest in the Kinki region. The very fact that these two fit within the jurisdiction of one city hall becomes the starting point for reading Tanabe. Within a breadth that made a single city of everything from mountains to coast, the gate town of pilgrimage and the memory of Benkei and Kumagusu lie scattered — gaze at the map that way, and the circumstances behind the numbers of population and finances come into view.