Yatsushiro-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 123,000 (123,067 in 2020). Over the five years from the 127,472 of 2015, it fell by some four thousand. It is a city in the south of Kumamoto Prefecture that has entered a phase of continuing decline.

What should be looked at here is that the fall of children is faster than that of the total. Those under fifteen fell by some thousand, from 15,775 (2015) to 14,679 (2020). In the same period the share aged 65 and over rose from 31.7% to 34.2%, passing one in three. The household-with-children share is 19.8% (2020), a relatively thick level of the child-raising layer for a regional city where aging proceeds. The land price of residential land is around 25,000 yen per m² (25,400 yen, 2026), the level of a regional harbor and industrial city. The Fiscal Capacity Index is 0.50 — a structure covering about half of expenditure with its own tax revenue and relying on the local allocation tax and the like for the rest. The Childcare Waitlist was 0 in 2025. But what should be noted is that this zero waitlist is a figure amid a falling absolute number of children. Even the same zero differs in meaning between a balance in a town where children increase and a zero in a town where children thin. Why it takes this form cannot be read without going back to the past of reclamation, the castle town, rush and factories.

The skeleton of Yatsushiro is a history of piling up industry by human hand upon the plain that river and sea made. The Kuma River, running through the center of the city, is counted as one of Japan’s three great rapids, and the silt it discharges, together with the action of the Shiranui Sea (the Yatsushiro Sea) with its large tidal range, made reclamation possible. The new land from the domain era on reaches some four thousand hectares. The land itself was a joint work of river, sea and human hand.

The skeleton as a castle town was set in the Edo period. In 1619 (Genna 5), in place of Mugishima Castle, which had collapsed in an earthquake, Yatsushiro Castle (Matsue Castle) was built, and from 1645 on it flourished until the end of the shogunate as the castle town of the Matsui family of 30,000 koku. The successive castle lords inherited the reclamation works and kept widening the plain. It is a typical instance of what economic geography calls the path dependence of a castle town — the urban planning of the warrior class regulating the skeleton of the later town.

What this plain raised was rush (tatami facing). Yatsushiro’s rush has its origin about five hundred years ago (the Muromachi period), and the Yatsushiro plain became a major producing district accounting for some eighty percent of the domestic output. Further, entering the Meiji era, the Port of Yatsushiro was developed as a modern harbor, and beginning with Kyushu’s first cement factory in 1890 (Meiji 23), papermaking (the present Nippon Paper Industries; one hundred years since its founding in 2024) and rayon pulp (the present Kohjin) advanced one after another, and it changed its form into an industrial city. And in 1940 (Showa 15) it enforced city status. Upon the plain that reclamation widened, a castle town, rush, a harbor and factories piled up across the ages — this town’s form stands upon the land that river and sea made.

What characterizes Yatsushiro is that, while the total population falls by four thousand over five years, the number of children falls faster than that. Those under fifteen thinned by some thousand, and the share of the elderly passed one in three. It is a flow common to regional cities that have passed the crest of population and are shifting their center of gravity, in substance, toward the elderly side. Even within the same Kumamoto Prefecture, it is in a phase different from the prefectural capital of Kumamoto (43100), which gathers people from its surroundings and holds its population.

The Childcare Waitlist is 0. But it is too early to read this zero only as "because childcare support has overtaken demand." In a town where the absolute number of children itself has fallen by some thousand over five years, the base of childcare demand also shrinks. As is seen in regional cities where children thin, like Imabari, a waitlist of zero carries the side of being "the result of the absolute number of children having thinned." Still, Yatsushiro’s household-with-children share of 19.8% is relatively thick for a regional city where aging proceeds, showing that the child-raising layer keeps a certain mass. Children fall, the elderly pass one-third, and yet the waitlist settles at zero — in regional industrial and agricultural cities where these proceed at once, the supply and demand of childcare also settle into small numbers. Unless one views the movements of children and the elderly separately, the town’s phase cannot be grasped.

The functions Yatsushiro holds are not one. The reclaimed plain widened by the action of the Kuma River and the Shiranui Sea has become a major producing district of rush (tatami facing) accounting for some eighty percent of the domestic output. The skeleton of the castle town centered on Yatsushiro Castle (Matsue Castle) continues today as the urban area set as the castle town of the Matsui family of 30,000 koku. The Port of Yatsushiro, developed in modern times, and the cluster of coastal factories beginning with papermaking (the present Nippon Paper Industries) characterize this town as an industrial city.

Yatsushiro has piled up a castle town, agriculture and harbor industry upon the plain that river and sea made. From a reclaimed land to a castle town, to a producing district of rush, and further to a harbor industrial city — the condition of "a plain that rapids and tidal range widened" has swapped a different function onto itself in each age. The castle town, the rush, and the factories all rest, in origin, upon this plain that river and sea made. The overlap by which a single land called forth a castle, tatami facing and factories one after another decides this town’s character.