Hamada-shi

In the most recent Population Census the population is about 55,000 (54,592 in 2020). To read this city’s population, one must take account of a merger. In 2005 the former Hamada City newly merged with neighboring towns and villages to form the present Hamada City. Before the merger, the former Hamada City’s population in 2000 was 47,187; after the merger, 2005 was 63,046. From there it has fallen gently — to 61,713 in 2010, 58,105 in 2015, and 54,592 in 2020. The population step between 2000 and 2005 in this article mirrors this expansion of the limits through the merger.

Looking inside the figures, the shape of a central town of the Iwami region, open to the sea, contracting appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 23.4% in 2000 to 35.6% in 2020. Households with children make up 16.9% (2020), and the childcare waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.41 in fiscal 2023 — its own tax revenue covers only about four-tenths of expenditure, with a large dependence on the allocation tax. The figure shows the town of a domain’s castle and a kitamae-bune port losing population in its post-merger limits while deepening in age. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without tracing the history of the castle town and the fishing port.

This town’s skeleton is set by a sea-facing domain’s castle and a kitamae-bune port, by the kagura and fishing port nurtured there, and by the merger that widened the limits. The central layer is castle town and port. In the Edo era this town was the castle town of a domain facing the sea. Among the domain’s harbors, the largest prospered as an anchorage where the kitamae-bune crossing the Sea of Japan called, and as a port for waiting out the wind, and people and goods gathered through the sea road. A sea-facing castle town and a port where the kitamae-bune called made this town’s central layer.

Onto this castle town and port, several histories were laid. One is the kagura. In this land nurtured by sea and mountain, a valiant kagura danced to the lively accompaniment of flute and drum has been handed down, alive in the people’s festivals of daily life. Another is the fishing port. In the modern era this town’s port was developed as the prefecture’s only fishing port of its rank, becoming a base for bottom fishing in the offshore grounds and for fishing the surface-swimming fish, and various fish were landed. The path by which it became a city mirrors this town too. In the modern era this land became a city around the castle-town urban area, and in 2005 it newly merged with neighboring towns and villages spread through the mountains, taking in limits from sea to mountain. A sea-facing domain’s castle and a kitamae-bune port, kagura and a fishing port, and a merger — this town’s form stands on the history of castle town and fishing port held by a port facing the Sea of Japan and the mountains behind it.

What characterizes Hamada-shi is that, while carrying the history of a domain’s castle, a kitamae-bune port, and a fishing port, it has lost the population of the limits widened by merger. From the 63,046 of 2005, after the merger, to the 54,592 of 2020, it lost some eight thousand over fifteen years. Though a central town of the Iwami region open to the sea, in this land far from the major cities one can read that, as younger generations moved to urban areas seeking work and study, the population fell. As the era of the kitamae-bune receded and fisheries too lay within the waves of the times, the town could not greatly increase workplaces for younger generations. Joining mountain villages into the limits also deepened the aging of the limits as a whole. That the share aged 65 and over reached 35.6% in 2020 is the sign of that population structure.

Meanwhile the childcare waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. A fiscal capacity of 0.41 is a level whose own tax revenue covers only about four-tenths of expenditure, with a large dependence on the allocation tax. As a central town of Iwami, holding limits from sea to mountain, it mirrors the limits of its own tax base. The town of a domain’s castle and a kitamae-bune port now loses population in its post-merger limits while deepening in age. Population falling after the merger, aging in the mid-thirty percents, fiscal strength on the weaker side. Even so, line up the aging rate alone without the rise and fall of the sea road — from a kitamae-bune port to the prefecture’s only fishing port — and how this Sea-of-Japan-coast town came to contract cannot be read. The numbers are best read together with the link to the sea.

Hamada has several roles nurtured by sea and mountain layered over one another. One is the castle town of a domain facing the sea in the Edo era, whose largest harbor prospered as an anchorage where the kitamae-bune called. Another is its character of having handed down a valiant kagura nurtured by sea and mountain, and of holding, in the modern era, the prefecture’s only fishing port of its rank, taking limits from sea to mountain through the merger. And the landform — a port facing the Sea of Japan and the mountains behind it — gathered the castle town, the kitamae-bune port, the fishing port, and the kagura into this land.

The location of opening onto a port facing the Sea of Japan and the mountains behind set a sea-facing domain’s castle, let its port prosper as an anchorage where the kitamae-bune called, and in the modern era had it carried on into the prefecture’s only fishing port of its rank. The valiant kagura nurtured by sea and mountain, and the mountain villages taken in through the merger, lie on the extension of the same location. In western Shimane Prefecture, at this single point where sea and mountain meet, castle town, fishing port, and kagura fold over one another — that is the footing for reading Hamada.