Shunan-shi

In the 2020 Population Census this city’s population is 137,540 — about 138,000. This city’s own data are recorded from 2005 after the merger, and from 152,387 it fell by some fifteen thousand over fifteen years to 137,540 in 2020. This is because the city was born in the new merger of 2003; the figures before that are recorded separately under the former cities and towns, such as Tokuyama City and Shin-Nanyo City.

What to note here is that the fall of children and aging proceed together. Those under 15 fell by more than five thousand over fifteen years, from 20,874 (2005) to 15,493 (2020). The share aged 65 and over rose from 22.9% to 32.5%, well past three in ten. The household-with-children share was 17.2% (2020) — a level typical of a regional city where aging has advanced. The elementary schools fell from forty just after the merger, through closings and consolidations, to thirty-four. The Childcare Waitlist has been almost zero in recent years, and the Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.76 in fiscal 2023. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of war supplies and the combine.

Shunan’s skeleton lies in this course: a war-supply base changed its figure into an industrial city, and was bound into one in the Heisei mergers. This town’s industrial origin goes back to the Meiji era, when a coal-fuel base of the old Navy was set at a good harbor facing the Seto Inland Sea. In 1921 this was reorganized and expanded into the Navy Fuel Depot and became a base for the Navy’s oil refining. It is the starting point of a city, supported by war supplies, that joined the port and industry.

But this agglomeration of war supplies drew war damage upon it. In the great air raids of the Second World War, Tokuyama’s Navy Fuel Depot was destroyed. And after the war, what decided this town’s character was the conversion of the site. In 1956 Idemitsu Kosan received the sale of the destroyed fuel-depot site and set about building a refinery, at the time the largest in the nation. This became the spark for the formation of Shunan’s petrochemical combine. The land that had been the Navy’s oil-refining base passed its role, after the war, to a private petrochemical agglomeration. The character of an industrial city facing the sea was handed down while changing owners, from war supplies to civilian demand.

What decided the present city area was the merger of 2003. In April of that year the two cities and two towns of Tokuyama City, Shin-Nanyo City, Kumage Town and Kano Town merged anew to form Shunan City. This was the first case of the great Heisei mergers in Yamaguchi Prefecture. From a Navy fuel base, to an industrial city holding a petrochemical combine, and then to a city made one in the Heisei mergers — Shunan’s present continues from this history of a war-supply site and a Heisei merger.

What characterizes Shunan is that, while it holds an industrial city with a petrochemical combine, both the population and the number of children fall, and aging is well past three in ten. That appears in the living-infrastructure numbers as a steady shrinking. The city’s elementary schools fell from forty just after the merger, through closings and consolidations, to thirty-four. In step with the fall of children, the school network too moves to the shrinking side.

The Childcare Waitlist has stayed almost zero in recent years. But this is, rather than the result of meeting demand, strongly the side of the absolute number of children having fallen by more than five thousand over fifteen years, leaving room in capacity. It is the same structure repeatedly seen in regional cities where the absolute number of children thins. While the agglomeration of industry supports a certain employment and tax revenue, the age of those who live there shifts to the elderly side and children thin. The thickness of an industrial city’s industry, and the population decline and aging of a regional city, proceed separately within the same town. The agglomeration of industry that is the combine, and the population of a regional city with an aging rate above three in ten, proceed separately on the same Shunan city area. The thickness of industry appears in tax revenue, but does not raise the youth of those who live there or the number of children — even a single number, a zero waitlist, can be read in the opposite sense if one does not add the background: whether capacity filled up, or whether children fell by five thousand and room opened.

On Shunan’s city area, the seaside combine and the urban districts of the four former cities and towns bound by the merger coexist. The petrochemical combine facing the Seto Inland Sea is a leading industrial agglomeration in the nation, formed with the building of Idemitsu Kosan’s refinery on the site of the old Navy Fuel Depot as its starting point. At the center of the former two cities and two towns bound by the 2003 merger, the urban districts of the old Tokuyama, Shin-Nanyo, Kumage and Kano coexist in places across the city area.

Shunan is a town where the site of war supplies changed its figure into an industrial city and was bound into one in the Heisei mergers. From a Navy fuel base, to a petrochemical combine, and then to a city that bound together two cities and two towns — the condition "there was a good harbor facing the Seto Inland Sea" first called in a war-supply base, then that site became a private industrial agglomeration, and in the Heisei mergers the city area was gathered together. The land that carried the Navy’s oil refining took on, after the war, a private petrochemical industry with a change of owner, inheriting the same seaside industry. Shunan’s industrial agglomeration stands not so much upon a blessing of geography as upon that change of owner, in which a war-supply site was reread into civilian demand.