Izumi-shi

In the 2020 Population Census the population is 51,994 — about fifty-two thousand. Because this city was established in 2006 when the city of the castle-town foot became newly one with two neighboring towns, the step in population for the city area appears between 2005 and 2010, when the merger is reflected in the Census. The population seen for the foot city alone was 39,155 in 2005; for the post-merger city area it was 55,621 in 2010, 53,758 in 2015, and 51,994 in 2020 — decreasing.

Looking inside, the figure of a city of the foot of the northern border of Satsuma appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 30.3% in 2015 to 33.4% in 2020, passing well beyond three in ten. The household-with-children share is 19.5% in 2020, and the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.42 in fiscal 2023 — a level able to cover only a little over four-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue, with a large degree of reliance on the local allocation tax. The figure shows in the numbers: a town that was the foot of the border of Satsuma where cranes arrive, losing population after widening its city area through merger. Why it takes this form cannot be read without going back to the past of the outer castle, the border and the migratory birds.

What supports Izumi’s frame is the position of the northern border of Satsuma, the foot of the warrior residences of the outer castle that guarded that border, the cranes that arrive in winter, and the two mergers. The starting layer is the border and the outer castle. This land lay on the northern border of Satsuma, and bore the role of guarding the border with the neighboring province. In the Edo period, Satsuma placed bases for governing the regions across the province, and a land where the warriors who bore the government and the guard at such a base were gathered was called a "fumoto" (foot). This town’s foot is the oldest and largest quarter of warrior residences in Satsuma, and it remains even now as an Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings. The northern border of Satsuma, and the foot of the outer castle that guarded that border, were the foundation of this town.

To this land of the border, when winter comes, cranes have arrived. The flock of more than ten thousand cranes, coming from across the sea, alights in the fields, winters over, and again returns north. It has been known as a crane wintering site among the leading in the country. The path to becoming a city, too, mirrors this town. In 2006, the city of the castle-town foot became newly one with two neighboring towns, was established, and widened its city area. The northern border of Satsuma, the foot of the warrior residences of the outer castle, the crane wintering site, and the two mergers — this town’s form stands upon the past of an outer castle and migratory birds that the foot of the northern border of Satsuma inscribed.

What characterizes Izumi is that, while it holds the past of the warrior residences of an outer castle and of migratory birds, it is losing population after widening its city area through merger. The 39,155 of 2005, seen for the foot city alone, became 55,621 in 2010 for the city area combining the two neighboring towns, and thereafter some four thousand were lost over ten years, to the 51,994 of 2020. Even in this land that guarded the northern border of Satsuma and welcomed cranes, the more the former towns whose mainstay is farming, the more some of the younger generation moved toward the larger cities, and one can read that the town’s age as a whole rose. That the share aged 65 and over passed well beyond three in ten at 33.4% 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 19.5% in 2020. The Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.42 is a level able to cover only a little over four-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue, showing the large degree of reliance on the local allocation tax seen in common across lands whose mainstay is farming. The town that was the foot of the border of Satsuma where cranes arrive is now, after widening its city area through merger, losing population and advancing its aging. A population fallen after the merger, an aging nearing the mid-thirties in percent, finances not thick on tax revenue alone — these look like separate numbers, yet upon the same past of the foot of an outer castle that guards the northern border of Satsuma they entangle into one through the outflow of the younger generation of the former towns. With a single number alone, the figure of the foot of the border cannot be formed.

The roles Izumi has held at this foot of the border can be counted in several. One is that it holds the past of the foot of the border — on the northern border of Satsuma, it keeps the foot of the warrior residences of the outer castle that guarded the border with the neighboring province, in the oldest and largest form in Satsuma. Another is that it bears the character of a crane wintering site among the leading in the country, to which more than ten thousand cranes arrive from across the sea when winter comes. And the position of bordering Kumamoto Prefecture at the northwest end of Kagoshima Prefecture has gathered here both the outer castle that guards the border and the fields where the cranes gather.

Izumi is a town in which the northern border of Satsuma held the foot of an outer castle and a crane wintering site. From the northern border of Satsuma, to the foot of the warrior residences of the outer castle, the crane wintering site, and the two mergers — the geography of "a land bordering Kumamoto Prefecture at the northwest end of Kagoshima Prefecture" set the foot that guards the border, welcomed the cranes in winter, and set the form of the town. On this land at the northwest end of Kagoshima Prefecture, bordering Kumamoto Prefecture, the foot of the outer castle that guards the border and the fields of the more than ten thousand cranes that arrive in winter overlap as two faces of differing origin.