Sojiya-shi

In the 2020 Population Census the population of Soja-shi is 69,030 — about sixty-nine thousand. Reading this city’s population calls for taking a merger into account. In 2005 Soja-shi widened its municipal area by joining anew with two neighboring villages. The old Soja City before the merger had 56,531 people in 2000, and the post-merger area had 66,584 in 2005. The step in this article’s population between 2000 and 2005 mirrors that widening of the municipal area through merger. From there it rose gently after the merger — 66,201 in 2010, 66,855 in 2015, 69,030 in 2020.

Looking inside the figures, the shape of a city opening onto a provincial seat appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 18.7% in 2000 to 29.4% in 2020 — yet, while many regional cities approach four in ten, it stays under three in ten. Households with children make up 20.8% (2020). The Childcare Waitlist was a slight nine in 2024 and three in 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.56 in fiscal 2023 — a middling level whose own tax revenue covers about six-tenths of expenditure. The numbers show the provincial-seat city that gathered the province’s shrines raising its population gently after the merger. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without tracing the history of the provincial seat and the demon’s castle.

This town was set by the history of a provincial seat that gathered the province’s shrines, by the castle where a demon holed up, and by the merger with two villages. The opening layer is the provincial seat. Long ago, an office that governed a whole province was placed in this land, and the gods of the entire province were enshrined together in a single shrine. The name of this shrine, which gathered the province’s shrines into one place to enshrine them together, became the very name of this town today. Even after the office fell into disuse, that shrine remains. A provincial seat that gathered the province’s shrines lies at this town’s center.

Upon this provincial seat the demon’s castle is layered. On the mountain at the town’s back stands an old mountain castle where a demon is said to have holed up, and with that castle as its stage the tale of a hero who subdued the demon has been handed down. This demon-subduing tale is said to be the prototype of a well-known folktale, and the region is listed as a national heritage as the birthplace of that folktale. This land is also handed down as the birthplace of a renowned master painter of the Muromachi period. The path to becoming a city mirrors this town too. In 2005 the provincial-seat city joined anew with two neighboring villages, widening the present municipal area. A provincial seat that gathered the province’s shrines, the castle where a demon holed up, the birthplace of a master painter, and the merger with two villages. Onto the ancient layer in which the shrine’s name became the town’s name, castle, folktale, and merger were piled later, and the present Soja came to be.

What characterizes Soja-shi is that, while carrying the history of a provincial seat that gathered the province’s shrines, it has gently raised its population after the merger. From 66,584 in 2005, in the post-merger area, to 69,030 in 2020, more than two thousand were gained over fifteen years. Behind this city’s growth, while many regional cities lose population, lies the fact that, on a plain in the basin of a large river and close to the sphere of a nearby large city, it has drawn child-rearing households as a residential area. That the share aged 65 and over stayed under three in ten at 29.4% in 2020 is the sign of that.

Meanwhile the Childcare Waitlist was a slight nine in 2024 and three in 2025 — not zero. This can be read as a sign that, against the demand of child-rearing households, the adjustment of childcare capacity has not fully kept pace in some phases. Households with children make up 20.8% (2020). A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.56 is a level whose own tax revenue covers about six-tenths of expenditure — middling. The population rose gently after the merger, aging stays under three in ten, fiscal strength is middling. While many cities hold the waitlist at zero, only this growing city keeps a slight waitlist — and in that mismatch of growth and unmet demand, the field of a city drawing people shows through.

In Soja, functions rooted in a plain in the basin of a large river have been inscribed. One is the history of a provincial seat: an office that governed a whole province was placed here, the gods of the entire province were enshrined together in a single shrine, and that shrine’s name became the town’s name. Another is its character: it holds on the mountain at its back an old castle where a demon is said to have holed up, and that demon-subduing tale was listed as a national heritage as the prototype of a well-known folktale. And the landform of a plain in the basin of a large river drew to this land both an office that governed a whole province and a residential area close to the sphere of a nearby large city.

A plain in the basin of a large river — that geography called, long ago, an office that governed a whole province, and in the Heisei era a merger that bound two villages. From the provincial seat to the castle where a demon holed up, the birthplace of a master painter, and the merger with two villages, histories of differing character have piled up on the same plain. On this plain opening onto southwestern Okayama Prefecture, the memory of the provincial seat and the lore of the demon’s castle still coexist at the foot of a single town.