Muroto-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about twelve thousand (11,742 in 2020). Its trend is, even among the towns this article treats, a particularly steep decline. From 19,472 in 2000, through 17,490 in 2005, 15,210 in 2010, 13,524 in 2015, to 11,742 in 2020, nearly four-tenths fell over twenty years.

Looking inside, the figure of a town at a peninsula’s tip whose fishing has declined, aging to an extreme, appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 27.6% in 2000 to 51.4% in 2020, passing half of those who live there. The household-with-children share was 9.0% (2020), particularly low even among the towns this article treats. The Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.22 in fiscal 2023 — it can cover only about two-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue, with an extremely large reliance on the allocation tax. The figure of a town of a heritage of the earth, losing population on a steep slope with the decline of fishing, with half of those who live there now elderly, appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of whaling and deep-sea fishing.

Muroto’s skeleton is set by the land of a peninsula jutting into the Pacific and by the fishing that sea brought. The old layer is the earth itself. The strata that lay at the bottom of the sea, pushed up over a long time and still continuing to rise, leave the history of the earth in visible form on this peninsula. For its geological value, the whole of the Muroto Peninsula was recognized, just so, as a heritage of the world conveying the history of the earth. At the peninsula’s tip there is a cape that has gathered people’s faith from of old; in the Heian era, a certain monk in his youth is said to have shut himself in a cave of this land and practiced austerities. The name that monk later took is said to derive from the sky and the sea seen from the cave.

And what supported this town’s life was the sea. In the domain era, net whaling was thriving in this land, and to promote it ports were opened, laying the foundation of a town of fisheries. In the modern era this town prospered as a base for deep-sea fishing. At its peak, the catch from fishing made up half the city’s income and reached nearly half the prefecture’s catch, making it a city of fisheries in name and in fact. But that fishing met a serious crisis from the end of the 1960s, and the surge in fuel prices dealt a great blow to deep-sea fishing. A peninsula wholly a heritage of the earth, and a maritime town that ran from whaling to deep-sea fishing — this town’s shape stands upon the history held by the geography of a peninsula jutting into the Pacific.

What characterizes Muroto is that, while holding the history of a heritage of the earth, with the decline of fishing it loses population on a steep slope and ages to an extreme. From 19,472 in 2000 to 11,742 in 2020, nearly four-tenths fell over twenty years. One can read that the deep-sea fishing that supported half the city’s income declined amid the crisis from the end of the 1960s and the surge in fuel prices, and the footing that supported the town thinned greatly. From the peninsula’s tip, with its thinned workplaces, the young generation kept moving to the prefectural capital and the metropolitan areas. That the share aged 65 and over passed half of those who live there at 51.4% in 2020 is also an expression of that population makeup.

On the other hand, the Childcare Waitlist has stayed at zero. With a household-with-children share extremely low at 9.0%, one can read that the receiving capacity is held within a small number of households needing childcare in the first place. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.22 is a level able to cover only about two-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue, with an extremely large reliance on the allocation tax. It mirrors that, as a town at the tip of a peninsula whose fishing has declined, the limits on its own tax base are great. The town of a heritage of the earth now loses population on a steep slope with the decline of fishing, with half of those who live there elderly, and its finances greatly supported by the allocation tax. Over twenty years nearly four-tenths fell, aging passed half of those who live there at 51.4%, and a fiscal capacity of 0.22 covers only two-tenths of expenditure with tax revenue. The position of a peninsula’s tip that lost deep-sea fishing lies behind these extreme numbers.

Muroto’s history is made of two strands, the rising earth and the sea that rose and fell. One is the origin of a land where the whole of a still-rising peninsula was recognized, just so, as a heritage of the world conveying the history of the earth, holding an old layer that leaves the record of the earth in visible form. Another is the character of whaling in the domain era and a base for deep-sea fishing in the modern era, leaving the time when the sea supported half the town’s income and its decline. And at the peninsula’s tip it holds a cape where a monk in his youth is said to have practiced austerities.

This geography — a peninsula jutting into the Pacific, continuing to rise and washed by the Kuroshio — pushed the whole peninsula up to a heritage of the earth, and called net whaling in the domain era and a base for deep-sea fishing in the modern era to this shore. There was a time when the sea supported half the city’s income, but that fishing declined from the end of the 1960s, and now only the rising earth remains, unmoved.