Izumo-shi

In the most recent Population Census the population is about 173,000 (172,775 in 2020). The first thing to set down here is that the population leaps in two stages — from 87,330 in 2000 to 146,307 in 2005, and again from 143,796 in 2010 to 171,938 in 2015. These are not the result of people naturally increasing, but of two mergers, in 2005 and 2011, and the steps in the figures mirror those mergers. That the number of schools jumps from 14 to 38 in 2005 owes to the same merger.

Looking inside the figures after the mergers, from 2015 — after the second merger — to 2020, the population holds almost flat. Those under 15 stayed roughly steady, from 23,617 (2015) to 23,315 (2020); for a regional city in San’in, the number of children has not crumbled. The share aged 65 and over rose from 19.8% in 2000 to 30.1% in 2020. Households with children make up 24.3% (2020). The childcare waitlist has been zero in recent years, and the Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.56 in fiscal 2023. The numbers show a municipality widened by two mergers that keeps its children while growing older. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without tracing the history of the shrine-front town and the mergers.

Izumo’s skeleton is set by the town that grew before the gate of a single grand shrine. Since antiquity, Izumo Taisha has been enshrined in this land, and its shrine front — the former Taisha Town — flourished as a shrine-front town that gathered pilgrims to the shrine, spread across the dunes along the Sea of Japan coast. The grand shrine where the gods are said to gather, and the town before its gate — this was the starting point of the region.

What fixed the shape of the present municipality was two Heisei-era mergers. In March 2005 the former Izumo City newly merged with the former Hirata City and the towns of Taisha, Koryo, Taki, and Sada. Two cities and four towns became one, binding into a single municipality the central city of the Izumo Plain, the shrine-front town, and the Sea of Japan coast. Then in October 2011 it annexed Hikawa Town, and the municipality widened by another step. That the number of schools jumped from 14 to 38 was because this merger bound the school networks of several former cities and towns into one municipality. A region including a shrine-front town that has existed since antiquity reshaped itself, through two mergers, into a broad-area city embracing the whole Izumo Plain — this town’s form stands on a history of a shrine-front town and two mergers.

What characterizes Izumo-shi is that, after the municipality widened greatly through two mergers, the number of children has not crumbled as it might for a regional city in San’in. From 2015 — after the second merger — to 2020, those under 15 held roughly steady and the total population stayed flat. As the central place of the eastern part of the prefecture, the Izumo Plain, its power to draw people and functions from the surrounding area reads as having kept the number of children from a sharp fall.

The figures for living infrastructure mirror both the merger and that stability. Elementary schools jumped at once from 14 to 38 in the 2005 merger, then fell gently in step with the number of children, standing at 34 in recent years — a school network kept dispersed across the wide municipality bound by the two mergers. The childcare waitlist has held at zero in recent years. A household-with-children share of 24.3% is, among cities of the same scale, on the higher side, showing that the town still holds child-rearing households. A region including a shrine-front town since antiquity became a broad-area city through two mergers and still keeps its children while growing older. The high share of households with children, the dispersed-but-maintained school network, the flat population — though these are separate figures, each mirrors, from its own angle, the power of the central place of the Izumo Plain to draw people and functions.

In Izumo two layers of differing eras overlap in one town. One is its character as the shrine-front town of Izumo Taisha since antiquity: the grand shrine where the gods are said to gather, and the town that grew before its gate, still draw many pilgrims. The other is the wide municipality bound by two mergers, embracing in one city the central place of the Izumo Plain, the shrine-front town, and the Sea of Japan coast. An ancient shrine-front town and a Heisei broad-area city — these two layers overlap in one town.

Before the gate of a grand shrine where the gods are said to gather a town grew up, and through the 2005 merger of two cities and four towns and the 2011 annexation of Hikawa Town, the whole Izumo Plain was bound into one municipality. Onto the natural foundation of the Izumo Plain and the Sea of Japan coast, the human hands of an ancient shrine-front town and two Heisei-era mergers were laid. An ancient shrine-front town and a Heisei broad-area city — the overlap of these two layers is the map for reading the town of Izumo.