Imari-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 53,000 (52,629 in 2020). Its course is a gentle decline. From the 59,143 of 2000, to the 58,190 of 2005, the 57,161 of 2010, the 55,238 of 2015, and the 52,629 of 2020, some six thousand were lost over twenty years.

Looking inside, the figure peculiar to a town holding port and mountain valleys appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 22.1% in 2000 to 32.1% in 2020, but while many regional cities approach four in ten, it stays at about three in ten. The household-with-children share is a high 23.2% in 2020, and the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.57 in fiscal 2023 — able to cover a little under six-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue, a mid-level for a regional city. The figure shows in the numbers: a town that was a port sending out porcelain, gently losing population while keeping a comparative youth. Why it takes this form cannot be read without going back to the past of the shipping port and the secret kiln.

The town of Imari lies upon a port that shipped out porcelain made at the neighboring mountain-valley kilns, and a secret kiln the domain guarded. The central layer is the port. In the Edo period, white porcelain was fired in abundance in the mountain valleys all about this district. That porcelain was made at many neighboring kiln villages, gathered at the port of this town in the depths of an intricate bay, and from here was carried out by ship to various lands. The name of this land, which was a port for loading onto ships, spread, just as it was, as a name pointing to the porcelain that was carried, and that beautiful porcelain came to be known, across the sea, even to the people of distant Europe by the name of this port. Not firing it itself, but sending the neighboring kilns’ porcelain out to the world — that was the role this port bore.

This town’s other foundation is the domain’s secret kiln. The domain that governed this land set, in the mountain valleys in the depths of this town, a kiln that fired porcelain with a craft not to be let leak outside. The fine porcelain fired there was a special thing presented from the domain to such as the shogun’s house, and its craft and design were strictly guarded. The quantity of porcelain carried out from the port, and the quality of porcelain guarded in the mountain depths — these two porcelains, of quantity and quality, shaped this town’s past. The path to becoming a city also reflects this town. In the mid-Showa era, this land became a city by uniting the port town as its core with the surrounding towns and villages. The port that shipped out the neighboring kilns’ porcelain, and the domain’s secret kiln — the location in the depths of an intricate bay has taken in the past of the port and the kiln.

What characterizes Imari is that, while it holds the past of a port that shipped out porcelain and the domain’s secret kiln, it is gently losing population and deepening its aging. From the 59,143 of 2000 to the 52,629 of 2020, some six thousand were lost over twenty years. The role of a port that sent out porcelain by ship grew distant as the route of distribution shifted to land, and this land in the depths of an intricate bay in the prefecture’s west is far from the major cities. Though there are the ceramic industry and industry later grown by making use of the bay, the inflow of the younger generation does not fully make up for the loss of population, and the town can be read as having gently lost population. That the share aged 65 and over reached about three in ten at 32.1% in 2020 is an expression of that population composition.

On the other hand, the household-with-children share is a high 23.2% in 2020, and the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. It can be read that households working in ceramics, and in industry grown by making use of the bay, keep a certain number of households with children in the town. The Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.57 is a level able to cover a little under six-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue, a mid-level for a regional city. The town that was a port sending out porcelain now gently loses population while keeping a comparative youth. The population falls gently, the aging is about three in ten, the body of the finances is mid-level. While the population falls, the household-with-children share is on the high side — a shrinking indicator and a kept indicator live together in the depths of an intricate bay. Pulling out only one number, that balance cannot be seen.

In Imari, several functions drawn in by the location of the depths of a bay are piled up. One holds the old layer of a port that, not firing it itself, gathered porcelain made at the neighboring mountain-valley kilns and sent it out to the world, whose port name became the name of the porcelain itself and was known even to distant Europe. Another holds the character of carrying both quantity and quality of porcelain, where, in the depths of this town, the domain set a secret kiln that fired porcelain with a craft not to be let leak outside and bore the special porcelain presented to such as the shogun’s house. And the location in the depths of an intricate bay gave this land the role of a port that gathered and shipped out porcelain.

Imari is the port town that sent the neighboring kilns’ porcelain out to the world. From a port that, not firing it itself, gathered the neighboring kilns’ porcelain and sent it out to the world, to the special porcelain of the secret kiln the domain guarded — a single location, "opening in the depths of an intricate bay," called the role of a port that gathered the mountain-valley kilns’ porcelain. In the depths of this bay in western Saga Prefecture, the quantity of porcelain flowing out to the world and the quality of porcelain the domain guarded gather in one connected stream.