Naruto-shi

In the 2020 Population Census this city’s population is 54,622, a little past fifty thousand. Its course is a gentle decline. From 64,620 in 2000, through 63,200 in 2005, 61,513 in 2010, 59,101 in 2015, to 54,622 in 2020, some ten thousand fell over twenty years.

Looking inside, the figure of a Shikoku regional city appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 21.7% in 2000 to 35.0% in 2020, passing three in ten. The household-with-children share was 18.3% in 2020, and the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.61 in fiscal 2023 — a middling level for a regional city, able to cover about six-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue. The figure of the town of whirlpools, gently losing population and deepening aging while keeping its fiscal strength at a middling level, appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of whirlpools and salt.

Naruto’s history can be traced from the geography of a strait where fierce tides whirl, and from the salt industry that sea raised. The old layer is salt. The whirlpools that turn in the Naruto Strait are said to be some of the largest tidal currents in the world, made by the difference of ebb and flow together with the form of the seabed. In Naruto, facing that sea, salt-making had long been thriving. And this salt industry bore an unexpected turn. In 1921 a certain person, seeking to use as a resource the bittern left in the salt fields, founded a pharmaceutical works division in this land. This became the origin of a pharmaceutical group that would later spread across the world. The salt the sea had raised became the seed of the pharmaceutical industry.

There is another memory in this town that links it to the world. During the First World War, about a thousand Germans taken as prisoners lived in a POW camp in this land. The camp was known for its humane operation, and the prisoners worked actively at music and drama. In 1918, in this camp, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was performed for the first time in Asia. Pharmaceuticals born of salt, and prisoners who played the Ninth — Naruto’s present continues from this history of salt and international exchange, held by the geography of a strait where eddies whirl.

What characterizes Naruto is that, while holding the history of pharmaceuticals born of whirlpools and salt, it gently loses population and deepens aging. From 64,620 in 2000 to 54,622 in 2020, some ten thousand fell over twenty years. In the northeast of Shikoku — near Tokushima City yet far from large cities — amid a flow in which the young generation moves to cities, one can read that the fall of population and the deepening of aging proceed. That the share aged 65 and over reached 35.0% in 2020, past three in ten, is one expression of this.

On the other hand, its fiscal strength keeps a middling level. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.61 is a level able to cover about six-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue — middling for a regional city. One can read that industry, beginning with the salt-born pharmaceutical works, gives thickness to the tax base. Special products such as the sweet potato called Naruto-kintoki and wakame seaweed also support the local economy. The Childcare Waitlist, too, was zero in both 2024 and 2025; the receiving capacity against demand is held. The town of whirlpools now gently loses population and deepens aging, while, against a background of industry beginning with pharmaceuticals, keeping its fiscal strength at a middling level. The gentle fall of population, the aging past three in ten, and the finances kept at a middling level all line up upon the same history, deriving industry from the salt of a whirling strait. Take out only the middling value of a fiscal capacity of 0.61, and one cannot trace the reason its strength is held amid so great a fall of population — how the salt-born pharmaceuticals support the tax base apart from the number of people living there.

Naruto’s industry and culture both derived, unexpectedly, from a single nature — a whirling strait. The whirlpools of the strait, said to be some of the largest tidal currents in the world, hold a nature proper to the meeting of tide and terrain. The history of pharmaceuticals, begun in 1921 with the bittern of the salt fields as a resource, keeps the old layer in which the sea’s salt became the seed of industry. And the memory that, in 1918, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was performed for the first time in Asia at the POW camp carves into this town the proper structure of an international exchange linking it to the world.

Naruto is a town carved by whirlpools, salt and the Ninth. From the salt-making seaside, to a town of pharmaceuticals born of salt, to the land where the Ninth was first played — the geography of "facing a strait where fierce tides whirl" raised salt, bore pharmaceuticals, and became the stage of international exchange as well, shaping the town’s outline. From the by-product of bittern left in the salt fields, a pharmaceutical that would spread across the world was born. That unexpected derivation — turning a land’s blessing into another industry — is the very starting point of the economy of the town of Naruto.