Takamatsu-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 417,000 (417,496 in 2020). In the five years from 420,748 in 2015, it fell by some three thousand. While keeping a large scale even among Shikoku’s prefectural capitals, it has entered a phase of very gentle decline.

Those under 15 fell by some three thousand in five years, from 55,082 (2015) to 52,018 (2020). In the same period the share aged 65 and over rose from 26.0% to 27.6%. Behind the gentle decline of the total, near level, the center of gravity shifts to the elderly side. The Official Land Price for residential land is about 48,000 yen per m² (47,900 yen/m²) — the lowest of the three cities set side by side here. The Fiscal Capacity Index is 0.77, below 1.0, with a structure that supplements a certain share of standard expenditure with the local allocation tax. The Childcare Waitlist went from 3 in 2024 to 0 in 2025. The household-with-children share is 19.9% (2020). Why such numbers take this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of a port town opened to the sea.

Takamatsu’s skeleton is the very history of a siting opened toward the sea, calling in a different role age by age. In 1587 Ikoma Chikamasa, given Sanuki, began building a castle the following year, 1588, at "Nohara," a medieval port town, and changed the place-name to "Takamatsu."

What to note in this town is that the castle was set with its back to the sea. Takamatsu Castle, an early-modern full-scale sea castle that drew the seawater of the Seto Inland Sea into its inner, middle and outer triple moat, is counted among Japan’s three great water castles and bears the alternate name Tamamo Castle. In economic geography, it is the form of a sea-facing castle set at a position commanding the Seto Inland Sea, the most important transport route of the time. After the Ikoma were transferred in 1642, Matsudaira Yorishige, who gained the 120,000-koku of eastern Sanuki, repaired the castle and in 1670 rebuilt the keep. Thereafter Takamatsu was the residence of the Matsudaira for eleven generations and developed as a castle town.

This siting opened to the sea carries on its role into the modern era as well. As a key point of Seto Inland sea traffic, routes to Honshu and the islands gathered at Takamatsu Port, which was once also the departure point of a railway ferry crossing to Honshu. And today, in the Sunport district at the head of Takamatsu Port, almost all of the national government’s branch offices governing the Shikoku region, beginning with the Shikoku Regional Development Bureau, are consolidated (the Takamatsu Sunport Joint Government Building was completed in 2006). From sea castle to port, and then to a base for Shikoku — a single siting opened to the sea took on a different role age by age. This is this town’s origin.

What characterizes Takamatsu lies in the pace of a gentle contraction, in which, while the total population falls by some three thousand, the number of children also falls by some three thousand. While keeping the scale of a four-hundred-thousand city, the whole quietly thins.

The Childcare Waitlist went from 3 in 2024 to 0 in 2025. It is a number resolved to zero in a single year, but this too is not unrelated to the absolute number of children falling. Behind this movement "from 3 to 0" lie both the side of increased supply and the side of demand itself shrinking. The household-with-children share is 19.9% — a standard level for a prefectural capital of four-hundred-thousand scale. Takamatsu is the largest in population among the three cities set side by side here, and for that the way the whole declines is gentle; but the direction of the flow, children thinning and the elderly share rising, is no different from Matsue or Tokushima. Largeness of scale does not change the direction of the flow; it only eases its pace. Even with a four-hundred-year history of opening to the sea, the direction — children thinning and the elderly share rising — is no different from Matsue or Tokushima. Even the small movement of the waitlist "from 3 to 0" will be misread as to what moved unless one overlays both the side of increased supply and the side of the absolute number of children itself shrinking.

Takamatsu’s functions are things that a single condition — opening to the sea rather than closing inward — has called in one after another over four hundred years. One is the very terrain and siting of a port town facing the Seto Inland Sea, with its back to which Takamatsu Castle was set. Another is Takamatsu Port, where routes to Honshu and the islands of the Seto gathered, carrying on its role as the gateway of Shikoku. And in the Sunport district at the head of Takamatsu Port, the national government’s branch offices governing Shikoku, beginning with the Shikoku Regional Development Bureau, are consolidated, characterizing this town as the administrative base of Shikoku.

Takamatsu is the prefectural capital of Kagawa and, at the same time, in a position that carries base functions for the whole Shikoku region beyond the prefecture. A sea castle was set on a port town opened to the sea, the port became the node of connection with Honshu, and the national offices governing all of Shikoku were loaded onto it — the origin of "a port town opened toward the Seto Inland Sea" took on a different role age by age. The castle, the port, and the national branch offices all rest, in origin, upon this siting at a key point of sea traffic. A single condition — opening to the sea rather than closing inward — called in the castle, the port, and the national offices governing Shikoku to the same shore age by age. Takamatsu’s outline is made of that very opened direction.