Hikari-shi

In the 2020 Population Census, this city’s population is 49,798 — just below fifty thousand. Because this city joined with one town in 2004, care for that step is needed when reading the population course. The 46,422 of 2000 is the value of the former city area before the union, and the figures from 53,971 in 2005 on are the value of the broad city area after the union. Thereafter it fell gently on the post-union city area, to 53,004 in 2010, 51,369 in 2015, and 49,798 in 2020.

Looking inside, the figure of a seaside industrial town gently raising its age appears. The share aged 65 and over was 35.8% in 2020, passing three in ten. The household-with-children share was 18.7% in 2020, and the crude birth rate was 6.3 per thousand in 2020. The Childcare Waitlist was zero in the latest 2025, but in 2024 a slight remaining rate was recorded (a waitlist rate of 0.27%). This shows that a small gap can arise, year by year, between households needing childcare and the places that receive them. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.61 in fiscal 2023 — a thick level for a regional city, able to cover more than six-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue. The figure of a town bearing the name of a seaside arsenal, gently losing population after joining with one town, appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of an arsenal and postwar factories.

This town’s skeleton is set by the history of an arsenal placed on a river-mouth delta, the origin of the city name, the two postwar great factories, and the union with one town. The first layer is the arsenal. In wartime, a great factory of the naval forces was placed on the river-mouth delta of this land. That factory became the source of the present city’s name. The arsenal placed on the river-mouth delta was this town’s foundation.

The trace of this arsenal called forth the postwar factories. When the war ended, two great factories — one that makes iron and one that makes medicine — entered its broad site, and it walked again as a seaside industrial town. On one side of the city is a seaside of white sand and continuous pines; on the other, a fishing port whose parent body is a port where ships of old awaited the wind. The seaside scenery is included in a national park as well. The road by which it became a city mirrors this town, too. Two towns became one and took city status, later annexed one village, and in the Heisei era joined with one neighboring town to become the present city area. The river-mouth-delta arsenal, the origin of the city name, the two postwar great factories, and the union with one town — this town’s shape stands upon the history of arsenal and factory, etched by the arsenal placed on the river-mouth delta.

What characterizes Hikari is that, while bearing the history of an arsenal and factories, it has gently lost population after joining with one town. On the post-union city area, about four thousand fell over fifteen years, from 53,971 in 2005 to 49,798 in 2020. The way of falling is gentle compared with inland mountain cities, and one can read that the two great seaside factories form the foundation of employment and hold back any sharp thinning of population. That the share aged 65 and over passed three in ten at 35.8% in 2020 while the Fiscal Capacity Index is thick at 0.61 for a regional city is its expression.

Meanwhile the household-with-children share was 18.7% in 2020, and the crude birth rate was 6.3 per thousand in 2020. The Childcare Waitlist was zero in 2025, but in 2024 a slight remaining rate was recorded. Relative even to the population scale, this number honestly shows that a small gap can arise, year by year, between households needing childcare and the places that receive them. The way of falling is gentle compared with inland mountain cities. The two great seaside factories form the foundation of employment and hold back any sharp thinning of population. That it can keep a fiscal capacity of 0.61 even with aging above three in ten is because the factory tax revenue mirrors the town’s strength better than the number of those who live there. Hikari’s numbers can be read as those of a town whose strength comes out on the fiscal side more than in the step of population.

The very name of the city, Hikari, derives from a former naval factory placed on the river-mouth delta. One thing is that it holds the history of an arsenal land, bearing the name of a great factory of the naval forces placed in wartime on the river-mouth delta. Another is that it holds the character of a postwar industrial city, where two great factories of iron and medicine entered its broad site. And it holds the face of a seaside land, with a seaside of white sand and continuous pines and a fishing port whose parent body is a port where ships awaited the wind. A naval factory placed on the river-mouth delta in wartime became, just so, the source of the city’s name.

Its broad site, after the war, received the two great factories of iron and medicine. The military land was re-read into industrial land, and continues to this day as the foundation of employment. In a town whose name derives from an arsenal, the thickness of finances, too, lies in the extension of the fact that this broad site was used and handed on across the ages.