Miyakonojo-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 160,000 (160,640 in 2020). Over the five years from the 165,029 of 2015, it fell by some four thousand four hundred. It is a city partway into the phase of gentle decline.

What should be looked at here is that, compared with Tomakomai or Ube, the fall of the number of children is gentle. Those under fifteen fell by a little over a thousand over five years, from 23,235 (2015) to 22,179 (2020). In the same period the share aged 65 and over rose from 28.9% to 31.5%. The household-with-children share is 20.0% (2020), a level higher than Tomakomai’s 18.5% and Ube’s 18.0%. The land price of residential land is around 21,000 yen per m² (2026; 20,800 yen/m²). The Fiscal Capacity Index is 0.54 (2023), not reaching 1.0, a structure in which a considerable part of standard expenditure is made up by the local allocation tax. This is a form common to regional cities with farming as their base, and is not a number that measures the superiority of a town. The Childcare Waitlist is 0 (2025). Why it takes this form cannot be read without going back to the past of the castle-town basin and the plateau of volcanic ash.

Miyakonojo’s skeleton is a land where three conditions — castle, volcano and basin — overlap. First, the town’s name itself conveys its history. The Hongo family, a branch of the Shimazu, was granted this area in the Nanboku-cho period, and the second-generation Yoshihisa built "Miyako-no-jo" (the castle of the capital) in 1375. This castle became, just as it was, the origin of the place name "Miyakonojo." In the Warring-States period it nearly unified the Miyakonojo basin, and after the Toyotomi age, following the Shonai Rebellion (1599), it changed its surname to Shimazu and came to be called "Miyakonojo Shimazu." In the Edo period a ruling system called "five mouths and six outer castles," dividing the domain and placing stewards, was laid down, and a region cored on the castle town was shaped. It is a typical case of, as historical geography would say, the path dependence of a region starting from a castle town.

The second foundation is the great land the volcano made. Miyakonojo is a basin ringed by Mount Kirishima, and across the area spreads the Shirasu plateau where volcanic ash has accumulated. This Shirasu plateau decided the town’s industry. The well-draining soil of volcanic ash suits the cultivation of sweet potatoes, and with those sweet potatoes as the raw material, shochu-making has flourished here from old. Moreover, the clear water of Mount Kirishima and the vast land suit stock-raising too, and a great producing area raising beef cattle, pigs and chickens grew. The castle left the place name, and the plateau of volcanic ash raised the potatoes and the stock-raising — this town’s form stands upon the past of the castle town’s history and the soil the volcano made.

What characterizes Miyakonojo is that, while the total population falls by some four thousand four hundred, the fall of the number of children stays at a little over a thousand. Whereas Tomakomai and Ube lost between one thousand eight hundred and two thousand to the fall of children over five years, Miyakonojo’s fall of children is gentle. That the household-with-children share, at 20.0% (2020), is at a level higher than the two industrial cities is surely not unrelated to this gentleness. The structure can be read in which a basin town with farming as its base thins its population in a way different from an industrial city.

The Childcare Waitlist is kept at 0 (2025). It is a zero amid the absolute number of children falling gently, but laid together with the comparatively high household-with-children share kept, it looks like a phase in which supply has caught up while childcare demand keeps a certain thickness. Even the same waitlist of 0 differs in its background between a town where children thin quickly and a town where children are kept to some degree. The fall of children is gentle, the households with children are comparatively thick, and the waitlist settles at 0 — the Shirasu plateau of volcanic ash raised the potatoes and the stock-raising, and that farming life ties a certain number of young households to the basin; that thickness lies behind the numbers.

The functions Miyakonojo holds are not one. The stock-raising that the Shirasu plateau and the water of Mount Kirishima raised characterizes this town as a producing area of beef cattle, pigs and chickens. The shochu-making with sweet potatoes — taken from the same plateau of volcanic ash — as its raw material continues as an industry rooted here from old. Moreover, the castle-town history, in which the Hongo family — later the Miyakonojo Shimazu — built a castle and left the place name, is inscribed at the town’s center. Miyakonojo gained its present city area by the merger of one city and four towns in 2006.

The castle left the place name, the plateau of volcanic ash raised the potatoes and the stock-raising, and the basin town grew as a farming producing area — the condition of "a basin of volcanic ash ringed by Mount Kirishima" has loaded the farming function upon the castle town’s history. The castle, the shochu and the stock-raising are all, in origin, set upon the same great land of basin and plateau the volcano made. The condition of volcanic ash, a soil that at a glance looks lean, has drawn in the distinctive industries of potatoes and stock-raising.