Hita-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 63,000 (62,657 in 2020). This city’s population has a step due to the merger. In 2005 Hita City merged the former Hita City with Maetsue Village, Nakatsue Village, Kamitsue Village, Oyama Town and Amagase Town — one city, two towns and three villages — into the present city area. The 62,507 of 2000, before the merger, became the 74,165 of 2005 after the merger, a number combining six municipalities, and from there it has come down to the 70,940 of 2010, the 66,523 of 2015, and the 62,657 of 2020.

Looking inside, the aging is deep. The share aged 65 and over reaches 35.7% in 2020. The household-with-children share is 20.3%, and the Childcare Waitlist has been zero in recent years. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.42 in fiscal 2023, covering about four-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue and on the side of relying on the allocation tax. The figure of a basin town that bore the shogunal rule of Kyushu, holding a fall of population and deep aging, shows in the numbers. Why it takes this form cannot be read without going back to the past of the shogunal territory, the district magistrate and the kakeya.

Hita’s skeleton is set by the geography of a basin in nearly the center of Kyushu, ringed by mountains, where the Mikuma River gathers. Near the borders of Fukuoka, Kumamoto and Oita, this basin, leading to every part of Kyushu, became in early-modern times a base of shogunal rule. In 1639 Hita became shogunal territory, and the Hita magistracy was placed. When in 1767 the Hita deputy was promoted to the Saikokusuji District Magistrate, Hita became the base of the shogunal rule of Kyushu, governing the 162,000 koku of the shogun’s directly-held domain in Kyushu.

That character as a base of rule drew riches into the town. From the period of the magistrate’s promotion, merchants who gained wealth by trading with the neighboring provinces and the merchants of Kyoto and Osaka rose. Wealthy merchants appeared who, as "kakeya," held the magistracy’s public funds and lent to the daimyo of the western provinces. Their wealth built the townscape that still remains in Mameda-machi. It is, as economic geography calls it, a typical case of an administrative center calling forth an accumulation of finance and commerce.

That wealth raised places of learning, too. Kangien, the private academy that Hirose Tanso opened in 1805, flourished as a Chinese-learning academy gathering scholars from across the country, and continued under successive academy heads even after Tanso’s death until the Meiji era. The surrounding mountains produced Hita cedar, and forestry by way of the Mikuma River, too, supported the town. Becoming shogunal territory, becoming the base of the district magistrate’s rule, gathering the kakeya’s wealth, and raising a private academy — this town’s form stands upon the past of the shogunal rule of Kyushu.

What characterizes Hita is that, while the population falls, it keeps the character of a town of the shogunal territory’s townscape and forestry. Over the fifteen years after the merger some eleven thousand were lost, and the aging rate rose to 35.7%. While the location of a mountain basin in Kyushu has been supported by farming and forestry, in the flow of the younger generation going out to cities such as Fukuoka, one can read that the fall of population and the deepening of aging proceed at once. The lowness of the Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.42, too, shows the composition of covering only about four-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue and relying on the allocation tax.

Even so, the history of the shogunal territory remains as the town’s core. The townscape of Mameda-machi, built by the wealthy kakeya merchants, is still preserved, and together with the site of Kangien conveys the history of the shogunal Hita. The forestry of Hita cedar, too, continues as an industry of the Mikuma River basin. The Childcare Waitlist has been zero in recent years, and the receptacle for child-raising is kept. The basin town that bore the shogunal rule of Kyushu now holds a fall of population and deep aging while keeping the core of the shogunal townscape and forestry. Because the places of work that would tie the younger generation to the basin are thin, people go out; because people go out, the age rises; because the age rises, the tax source thins too — at the entrance of this chain lies the landform of a mountain basin of Kyushu.

The functions Hita has borne are not one. As the base of the shogunal rule of Kyushu, where it became shogunal territory and the Saikokusuji District Magistrate was placed, it governed the 162,000 koku of the directly-held domain of Kyushu. The wealthy kakeya merchants who held the magistracy’s public funds and lent to the daimyo gathered riches, and keep that memory in the townscape that still remains in Mameda-machi. And Hirose Tanso’s Kangien and the forestry of Hita cedar gave this town the face of a town of scholarship and forestry.

From a basin that became shogunal territory, to the base of the Saikokusuji District Magistrate’s rule, to a commercial city that gathered the kakeya’s wealth, to a town of a private academy and forestry — the geography of "a mountain basin leading to every part of Kyushu, where the Mikuma River gathers" drew in the base of administration and the wealth of commerce. The district magistrate’s rule and the kakeya’s wealth are folded together upon the same single landform of a basin in central Kyushu, and set the present form of Hita.