Usa-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 53,000 (52,771 in 2020). To read this city’s population, the merger must be taken into account. In the spring of 2005, Usa City became newly one with two neighboring towns and widened its city area. The 2000 population of the former Usa City, before the merger, was 49,312; the 2005 figure through the merger was 60,809. The step in population between 2000 and 2005 in this article reflects this widening of the city area by merger. From there it has decreased gently after the merger, to 59,008 in 2010, 56,258 in 2015, and 52,771 in 2020.

Looking inside, the figure of a gate-town village appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 24.7% in 2000 to 36.6% in 2020, passing well beyond three in ten. The household-with-children share, at 18.7% in 2020, is on the lower side, and the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.42 in fiscal 2023 — a middling level, able to cover a little over four-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue. The figure shows in the numbers: a village holding the head shrine of the Hachiman cult, advancing its aging while losing population in the city area after the merger. Why it takes this form cannot be read without going back to the past of the head shrine and the merger.

What supports Usa’s past is the past of the head shrine of the nation’s shrines, and the merger with two neighboring towns. The central layer is the shrine. In this town stands the head shrine of a cult that enshrines a certain deity — a cult said to count more than 40,000 shrines across the country. It is the source shrine of those shrines enshrined in the villages and towns of each region, and it conveys a history of more than a thousand years. That the source of the shrines enshrined, divided, in places everywhere in this country is in this town — that is this town’s central past.

As the gate town of this head shrine, the village flourished. People came from each region to worship, and before its gate a town grew. The path to becoming a city, too, mirrors this town. In the 1960s of the Showa era this land became a city by the merger of several towns, and 38 years after that, in the spring of 2005, it became newly one with two neighboring towns and widened its present city area. The head shrine of the nation’s shrines, the shrines enshrined divided in each region, and the merger with two neighboring towns — this town’s form stands upon the past of the head shrine and the merger held by the gate-town land that held the head shrine of the nation’s shrines.

What characterizes Usa is that, while it holds the past of a village that held the head shrine of the nation’s shrines, it is losing population and advancing its aging in the city area after the merger. From the 60,809 of 2005, through the merger, to the 52,771 of 2020, some eight thousand were lost over fifteen years. Even in this gate-town village that has gathered worshippers from across the country, one can read that some of the younger generation moved to the larger neighboring cities, and the town’s age as a whole rose. That the share aged 65 and over passed well beyond three in ten at 36.6% in 2020 is an expression of that. That the lands added by the merger were originally older-aged mountain lands can also be read to bear on the aging of the city as a whole.

On the other hand, the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. That the household-with-children share, at 18.7% in 2020, is on the lower side can also be read as the reverse side of the town’s age having risen. The Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.42 is a level able to cover a little over four-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue — middling. One can read that the income of the households living in the gate town supports the tax source at a middling level. The village holding the head shrine of the nation’s shrines is now losing population and advancing its aging in the city area after the merger. The shrine that gathers worshippers from across the country stands there unchanged, and only the generations of the people living before its gate quietly move toward the elderly side.

The functions Usa holds are not one. Holding the head shrine of a cult that enshrines a certain deity — said to count more than 40,000 shrines across the country — it was the source of the shrines enshrined, divided, in each region. As the gate town of that head shrine it gathered worshippers, became a city in the 1960s of the Showa era, and in the Heisei era became one with two neighboring towns and widened its city area.

From the head shrine of the nation’s shrines, to the shrines enshrined divided in each region, and the merger with two neighboring towns — the past of "the source of the shrines said to count more than 40,000 across the country" bred the gate town and widened the city area through the merger. The head shrine of the Hachiman cult and the city area widened by merger fold together in the same single place — the north of Oita Prefecture — to set the present form of Usa.