Minamata-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 24,000 (23,557 in 2020). Because this city did not pass through the Heisei mergers and has walked alone, there is no merger-derived step in its recent population course. From the 31,147 of 2000, to the 29,120 of 2005, the 26,978 of 2010, the 25,411 of 2015, and the 23,557 of 2020, it has fallen consistently.

Looking inside, the figure of a company town that grew supported by a single company appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 36.5% in 2015 to 40.9% in 2020, passing four in ten. The household-with-children share is 16.9% (2020), and the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.37 in fiscal 2023 — a level whose own tax revenue does not reach four-tenths of expenditure, with a large degree of reliance on the local allocation tax. The figure shows in the numbers: a company town supported by a single company, advancing its aging to four in ten while consistently losing population. Why it takes this form cannot be read without going back to the past of the company, the pollution and the renewal.

This town’s skeleton is set by the modern chemical factory that a single company placed, the company town supported by that company, the deep pollution that arose there, and the renewal of the town through the environment. The starting layer is the company. Entering modern times, a single company placed a chemical factory in this land. The factory grew together with the town, and a company town grew, where most of those who lived had some connection with that factory. A single company was the modern foundation of this town.

But the factory’s wastewater bred a deep pollution. In 1956, a pollution-caused disease whose cause was a substance contained in the factory’s wastewater was officially confirmed, and the sea, and the people living there, were deeply harmed. Because the company was on the side of harm to the town, the town came to hold a long, heavy question. In time this town held up "moyai-naoshi" — the re-tying of bonds between people who had been harmed — and the rebuilding of the town through the environment. That effort came to be certified, in 2008, as a national model city for the environment. The factory a single company set, the company town, the deep pollution, and renewal through the environment — this town’s form stands upon the past of prosperity, pollution and renewal that the company town supported by a single company inscribed.

What characterizes Minamata is that, while it holds the past of a company town, pollution and renewal, it is consistently losing population. From the 31,147 of 2000 to the 23,557 of 2020, some seven thousand five hundred were lost over twenty years. Even in this town that grew supported by a single company, amid the changes in the factory’s scale and the town’s course through pollution, one can read that some of the younger generation moved toward the larger cities, and the town’s age as a whole rose. That the share aged 65 and over passed four in ten at 40.9% in 2020 is an expression of that.

On the other hand, the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025, and the household-with-children share is 16.9% (2020). The Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.37 is a level whose own tax revenue does not reach four-tenths of expenditure, showing the large degree of reliance on the local allocation tax. The population falls consistently, the aging passes four in ten, and the body of the finances is not thick on tax revenue alone. The numbers of a town that has accompanied the rise and fall of a company form an image only thus, with population, age and finances laid out on a single sheet.

The functions Minamata holds are not one. There is the past in which, in modern times, a single company placed a chemical factory, and it grew as a company town where most of those who lived had a connection with that factory. There is also the character of renewal, in which the factory’s wastewater bred a deep pollution, and the town, through that experience, held up "moyai-naoshi" and rebuilding through the environment, and was certified as a national model city for the environment. The landform and position of the southernmost tip of Kumamoto Prefecture, facing the Yatsushiro Sea, brought the factory, and the road of pollution and renewal, to this land.

Minamata is a town where a company town supported by a single company held up renewal through the environment. From the factory a single company set, to the company town, the deep pollution, and renewal through the environment, what set the skeleton was the geography of "the southernmost tip of Kumamoto Prefecture, facing the Yatsushiro Sea." The company raised the town, that company’s wastewater harmed the town, and the town set the pillar of the environment from that experience. The choice of a single company connected directly to this town’s fate — prosperity, pollution and renewal all alike.