Takehara-shi

In the 2020 Population Census, this city’s population is 23,993 — about twenty-four thousand. Because this city did not go through the Heisei merger and has walked on its own, its recent population trend has no merger-derived step. It has fallen by nearly eight thousand over twenty years, from 31,935 in 2000, to 30,657 in 2005, to 28,644 in 2010, to 26,426 in 2015, to 23,993 in 2020.

Looking inside, the figure of a seaside little Kyoto enriched by salt and sake, raising its age greatly, appears. The share aged 65 and over was 42.0% in 2020, passing four in ten. The household-with-children share was 14.2% in 2020, low, and the crude birth rate was 4.2 per thousand in 2020. The Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.71 in fiscal 2023 — a thick level for a regional city, able to cover a little over seven-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue. The figure of a little-Kyoto land enriched by salt and sake, losing population while remaining on its own without merger, appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of salt-making, sake-brewing and the townscape.

This town’s skeleton is set by the history of salt made by an invited craft, the sake-brewing that rose from the wealth of salt, the townscape called a little Kyoto, and the walk on its own. The first layer is salt. In the Edo era this seaside land was ordered to open new paddy fields, but because the soil held much salt and was ill-suited to paddy, it turned to a path of making salt by the shore, inviting technicians from a distant land. In time the salt of this land came to be widely known. Salt made by the shore was this town’s foundation.

The wealth gained from this salt brewed sake. Merchant houses moistened by salt extended into sake-brewing, and a merchant town prospering by salt and sake was built. Because in the Heian era it was a manor of a shrine of the capital, this land was also called "the little Kyoto of Aki." The kilns that made salt died out in the mid-Showa era, but the rows of white-walled, latticed houses that wealth built still remain, and have become a national preservation district. The road by which it became a city mirrors this town, too. In the mid-Showa era it became a city by joining with a neighboring town, but it did not enter the Heisei merger and has walked on its own. Salt made by an invited craft, the sake-brewing of salt’s wealth, the little-Kyoto townscape, and the walk on its own — this town’s shape stands upon the history of salt-making and sake-brewing, on the wealth that salt made by the shore built.

What characterizes Takehara is that, while bearing the history of salt-making and sake-brewing, it has lost population while remaining on its own without merger. About eight thousand fell over twenty years, from 31,935 in 2000 to 23,993 in 2020. Even in this seaside land enriched by salt and sake, one can read that, with the end of the work of making salt, a part of the young generation moved toward larger cities, and the age of the whole town rose greatly. That the share aged 65 and over passed four in ten at 42.0% in 2020 is one expression of this.

Meanwhile the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025, the household-with-children share was 14.2% in 2020, and the crude birth rate was 4.2 per thousand in 2020. The Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.71 is a thick level for a regional city, able to cover a little over seven-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue. The kilns that made salt died out in the mid-Showa era, and now more than four-tenths of the population is elderly. That the fiscal capacity of 0.71 is nonetheless thick for a regional city can be read as because it keeps holding factories and establishments along the shore. The foundation that produces wealth has remained in this town while changing form — from salt, to the white-walled townscape, and then to the coastal establishments.

To read Takehara, it is quickest to trace the layers in the order of salt, sake, townscape. The starting point is a stretch of seaside ill-suited to paddy. The salt-rich soil, unfit for new paddy fields, was re-read as a resource for making salt by a craft invited from a distant land. That salt became widely known and produced wealth.

Wealth brewed sake, and merchant houses moistened by sake left behind a white-walled, latticed townscape. Even after the kilns that made salt died out in the mid-Showa era, the houses left as wealth’s parting gift remain as a preservation district, and that in the Heian era it was a manor of a shrine of the capital added the byname "the little Kyoto of Aki." This chain, where one thing calls forth the next, carried a small seaside town facing the Seto Inland Sea to the point of being called a little Kyoto.